Swifts Verse An Essay

BY THE j SAME AUTHOR

. THE JUDGES
IN IRELAND, 1221-1921

' The result of wonderful research and
industry. Absolutely impartial — in fact,
judicial — he has set forth the topics in
the most luminous fashion. The book
is marked by scholarship and precision,
which wall make it valuable to the
historian. ’ — The Sunday Times,

All Bights Besebved

SWIFT’S VERSE

AN ESSAY

By

F. ELRINGTON BALL, LITT.D.

EDITOR OF “SWIFT’S CORRESPONDENCE 99

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

Fibs* Edition

1929

PREFATORY NOTE

Although Dr. Elrington Ball did not live to
see the publication of the present volume, he had
-completed his task, save for the preparation of
an index and the final revision of the proof
sheets, at the time of his death in January last.
For the revision of the proofs I have had the good
fortune to secure the services of two scholars.
Professor Nichol Smith and Mr. Harold Williams,
whose authority in regard to Swift’s writings is
recognised by all students of the subject. The
’thanks of all who are interested in the great
Dean are due to them for the generous way in
which they have contributed of their time and
of their knowledge to the preparation of this
volume for the press.

E. M. Walker.

Qtjeen’s College, Oxford,

INTRODUCTION

After the death of Mr. Litton Falkiner, whose
memory is regarded by students of Irish history
with respect and by his friends with affection, I
undertook to supply so far as lay in my power
his place as an editor of a new edition of Swift’s
Correspondence. It was not without solicitude
that I entered on that task, conscious as I was
that a failure on my part might detract from the
high reputation that Mr. Litton Falkiner’ s gifts
had earned for him, and it was most gratifying to
* me to find that, through a somewhat exceptional
knowledge of the ruling classes in Ireland both in
the past and in my own day, I was thought not
to have altogether failed in carrying out Mr.
Litton Falkiner’ s desire to throw fresh light on
the life and times of Swift.

Although it was circumstances rather than
inclination that had connected me with Swift,
I Mt that it was right to give such further help
as I could in elucidating his Works, and on the
conclusion of the War I spent the greater part of
two years in collecting information in regard~to
his verse, which I had become aware was in a
most chaotic state. That information I embodied
in ah Essay, but the circumstances of the time
rendered the issue of the Essay impossible, and I
could only communicate then to the public through
Notes and Queries a summary of its contents.

t *

VU

X INTRODUCTION

one in the Miscellanies in which Swift and Pope
joined in 1727. In the latter twenty-two pieces
were added to the thirteen which had been pub-
lished by Morphew, and which were reprinted.
These pieces were supplemented by ten more
pieces which were published in another volume
of the same Miscellanies in 1732. Then in 1735
George Faulkner, the prince of Dublin printers
as Swift called him, issued as the second volume
of his edition of Swift’s Works a collection in
which an addition of sixty pieces was made to the
forty-five pieces previously published. To that
collection Faulkner added further pieces in the
sixth, eighth and eleventh volumes of his edition
of Swift’s Works, issued respectively in 1738,
1746, and 1762. Meantime in England Dr. John-'
son’s contemporary, John Hawkesworth, who was
more ambitious than successful in his career,
took a part in the collection of pieces, and was
succeeded by John Nichols, whose researches
have afforded material for subsequent editors and
biographers. Finally, as the Essay tells in detail,
a- vice-provost of Trinity College, John .Barrett,
whose attainments have been forgotten in the
fame of his penurious habits, and Sir Walter
Scott gave their aid.

F. Elrington Ball.

London,

November 1927,

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

The Inspiration of the Familiar Style,

1682-1689

CHAPTER II

Pindaric and Heroic Aberration, 1689-1694

CHAPTER III

The Development c>f the Familiar Style,

1694-1707

CHAPTER IV

Addisonjan Influence, 1707-1710 .

CHAPTER Y

The Fellowship with Prior Begun, 1710-1711

CHAPTER VI

The Fellowship with Prior Continued,

1712-1714

PAGE

1

16

39 f

r

63

102

124

xii

CONTENTS

CHAPTER VII

Hibernian Associations, 1714-1723

CHAPTER VIII

The Drapier, his Friends and his Foes,

1724-1725

CHAPTER IX

With Pope, 1726-1727

CHAPTER X

Hibernian Associations Renewed, 1728-1730

CHAPTER XI

Alone, 1731-1737

APPENDIX I

The Loyal Address oe the Clergy of Virginia

APPENDIX II

A Trip to Dunkirk .....

APPENDIX III

An Irish Ballad

APPENDIX IV

PAGE

147

178

208

231

261

299

301

305

Scotch-Cloath

812

CONTENTS
APPENDIX Y

A Eable of the Widow and her Cat .

APPENDIX VI

The Description of Dunkirk

APPENDIX VII

To Mr.- Sheridan

APPENDIX VIII

The Bank thrown down

APPENDIX IX

The First of April ....

APPENDIX X

Jove’s Ramble

APPENDIX XI

Under Spur-Leathers ....

APPENDIX XII

Blueskin’s Ballad ....

xiii

PAGE

* 315

. 317

. 321

. 323

. 326

. 328

. 332

. 384

APPENDIX XIII

Riding the Franchises of Dublin

387

XIV

CONTENTS

APPENDIX XIV

PACE

Harding’s Resurrection .... 838

APPENDIX XV

A Satyr 340

A Letter from D. S t to D. S y ; . 343

APPENDIX XVI

A Christmas Box for Namby Pamby . . 846

APPENDIX XVII

To the Honourable Mr. D.T, . . . 849.

APPENDIX XVIII

Epigrams on Windows of English Inns . 866

APPENDIX XIX

An Excellent New Song .... 857

APPENDIX XX

Elegy upon Tiger 860

APPENDIX XXI

Spuddy’s Lamentation _ 862

APPENDIX XXII

A Panegyric 864

CONTENTS

xv

APPENDIX XXIII

PAGE

The Life and Genuine Character oe Doctor

Swift 371

APPENDIX XXIV

The Alderman’s Guide .... 380

APPENDIX XXV

A Lullaby 385

APPENDIX XXVI

Undated Pieces Attributed to Swift . . 389

In$ex 391

SWIFT’S VERSE

CHAPTER I

THE INSPIRATION OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE
Ann. Dom. 1682-1689. Aet. suae 14-21.

“ Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet,” are
words attributed to Dryden during his short
intercourse with his kinsman. He is said to
have made that prediction on seeing one of
Swift’s pindaric pieces ; but judging by his opinion
of Iffudibras, he would not have thought that he
had erred in his forecast if he had lived to see
the octosyllabic lines on which Swift’s fame in
verse rests.(l) Swift’s pieces are the very anti-
theses of those that were the glory of Dryden and
his fellows. In Swift’s verse, fire of poetry and
magnificence of imagery or language have no
part! In verse as well as in prose he seeks the
most simple statement, the plainest phrase and
the most ordinary comparison, and aims at convey-
ing his meaning with the utmost clearness and.
force.

But in spite of their lack of the spirit of poetry,
Swift’s verses find a place in every English
anthology, and even by those who would fain
censure. Swift is numbered amongst the poets
of England. In the opinion of Goldsmith, he

2 INSPIRATION OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

owes his title to the name of a poet not so much
to the greatness of his genius, as to the boldness
of it. He was, says Goldsmith, the first poet who
dared to describe nature as it is with all its
deformities, and to give exact expression to a
turn of thought alike dry, sarcastic and severe,
and in consequence of this courage he is placed
by Goldsmith for poetical genius in the same rank
as Milton, Dryden and Pope.(2)

To his boldness Swift added in verse faultless-
ness in numbers and rhyme, and by these qualities
he forced Johnson, grudging as he was ever in
his praise of him, to admit that in a humorous
familiar style his more important pieces left
little to be desired.(3) From that verdict no sub-
sequent critic of authority has differed. Drains
is of opinion that Swift attained perfection in the
form of versification with which his name is
identified, (4) and Hazlitt went so far as to say
that if Swift had written nothing but his verse,
his name would have lived.(5) In later times
their judgement has been confirmed in a greater
or less degree by Lecky, Saintsbury and Court-
hope, and, although they emphasize Swift’s
want of poetical spirit, by Taine and Churton
Collins.

. In a remarkable passage Sir Henry Craik has
enunciated the theory that poetic fire was re-
pressed rather than wanting in Swift’s character,
and that the failure to find utterance for it blasted
his temperament and affected his whole life.(6)
It is at least certain that Swift was in his earlier
years intensely ambitious to excel in the language

1682-1689

3

of poetry, and that throughout his life he selected
as his chief friends those who did so. Of the
poets of his time there was scarcely one with
whom he had not personal acquaintance, and in
succession Addison, Prior and Pope occupied
the chief place in his affections.

Swift’s verse is in its essence practical. It
deals with a particular person or class, practice
or policy, and apportions directly praise or
blame. His best-known verses have for their
subject his own circumstances, but generally
his pieces relate to persons, or things external to
himself, and frequently they are inspired by a
desire to shield his friends or further their
interests. The influence of his friends upon
Swift, which has been hitherto hardly appreciated,
is specially noticeable in considering the history
of his verse. It was not so much his own inclina-
tion as anxiety to gain recognition for another’s
talents that led him to strike a lower note and to
spend much time in the composition of trifles,
and it was not injustice to himself, but injustice
to others, that kindled his greatest paroxysms of
indignation. Too often the influence of his
friends was in versification a snare for Swift.
His power of changing his subject and style was
as illimitable in verse as in correspondence, and*
in his efforts to associate himself with the thought
and conduct of those to whom he extended his
friendship, his judgement was swayed.

In Swift’s earlier years the tendency to take
his tone from his environment led to his adopting
the use of coarse allusions, which has brought

4 INSPIRATION OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

his verse into much disrepute. At the time of
his entrance into it in 1682 the “ College of the
Holy and Undivided Trinity near Dublin ” had,
* even for the reign of Charles the Second, an un-
enviable notoriety for loose manners. Those
accustomed to life in Oxford and in London were
surprised by the atmosphere. The provost spoke
of the lewdness and debauchery of Dublin affect-
ing the students, (7) and a government official
said that the college was more a sepulchre than
a nursery for the youth of Ireland, and that as
the gentry were in consequence of its condition
beginning to send their sons abroad to be educated,
it would be soon left desolate.(S) From within
the walls of the college lampoons of the grossest
description emanated. Besides a loathsome
speech of a terrae filius in 1688, which was found
by a famous vice-provost of Trinity College named
Barrett at the beginning of the nineteenth
century and printed in Sir Walter Scott’s edition
of Swift’s Works, there are extant, as specimens
of the lighter products of the college then, several
pieces of shameless verse and the speeches of
two earlier terrae filii than the one made known
by Vice-Provost Barrett.(9) Some of the verses
were written before the close of the provostship
"of Narcissus Marsh, who was raised to the epis-
copal bench of Ireland in the spring of 1683, and
the remainder in the interregnum before the
appointment of his successor; and the first of
the speeches, which is partly in English and dog-
Latin prose and partly in verse, was written in
1685 , and the second, which is wholly in verse.

1682-1689

5

was written in 1687. To those engaged in the
production of either the speeches or the verses,
which together cover forty-two pages of small
quarto paper, forming originally a thin book,
there is in the manuscript no clue except in the
case of the second speech. It is headed “ Mr.
Brady’s tripos, ”(10) and was no doubt delivered
in the character of a terrae filius by one Joseph
Brady, who in the spring of 1687 was admitted,
as Swift had been a year previously, by special
favour to the degree of bachelor of arts, and who,
though junior in standing to Swift, was several
years senior in age to him. A few weeks before
graduating he had been admonished with Swift
and others for neglect of duties and frequenting
the town, and a few months after graduating he
was expelled for writing and publishing a scanda-
lous libel on some ladies of quality.(ll)

The speeches of 1685 and 1687 and the verses
are in a collection made by one of Swift’s
friends (12) and including some of Swift’s letters,
and as Swift’s residence in Trinity College ex-
tended from the spring of 1682 until the beginning
of i689, ’they may have owed in some degree to
him their preservation. Indeed, as regards the
speeches it seems not impossible that he had a
part in their composition. In Captain Gulliver's
Real Diary, which contains information about
Swift that can only have been gathered from what
he had told himself, there is a statement that
while in college he wrote lampoons, (13) and there
is reason for a supposition that he was the author
of some verses on a judge’s clerk which must have

6 INSPIRATION OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

been written before the spring of 1687, when
one of the judges mentioned in them was super-
seded. These verses, which are headed

An Elegy on the Pig that

folio wd Ld Chief Baron Henn and

Baron Worth the Connaught circuit to Dublin,

were first printed with a piece that is undoubtedly
by Swift (14 ) ; they refer to a part of Ireland of
which he had knowledge through a college
friend, (15) and although puerile, they are not
devoid of the originality that one associates with
Swift’s writings in his later life :

Being one of those that trot o’er Bog
’Twas want of English made this Hog
Upon his Tongue to wear a Brogue.

Your Connaught Pigs talk Irish best,

Therefore they speak true English least,

For those are Wide as East from West.

The speech of the terrae filius in 1688 found by
Vice-Provost Barrett, and published first in the
Essay on the earlier part of the Life of Swift
by him, is in the main similar to the speech
delivered in 1685, but it is longer, and includes
a dialogue, a style of composition not adopted in
£he earlier speech. It is preserved in the Library
of Trinity College, Dublin, in a manuscript collec-
tion made by the first peer of the line of the Earls
of Lanesborough, Theophilus, Lord Newtown
Butler, who entered Trinity College towards the
close of Swift’s residence, and maintained a friend-
ship with him until they were divided by the

1682-1689

7

question of whig and tory. The collection,
which consists with a few exceptions of pieces
of verse written in the last twenty years of the
seventeenth and first twenty years of the eigh-
teenth centuries, fills three volumes of small
quarto size, and to the collection this title-page
is prefixed :

The Whimsical Medley, or A Miscellaneous
Collection of several! Pieces in Prose and
Verse some Latin, most English, being an
agreeable Variety of Satyr and Elogy,
Epigram and Sonnet, Fable and Ballad,
Lampoon and Pasquinade. To which is
Added an Appendix of the same Nature
with what went before, Good, bad and
Indifferent, Just as it happens to Chime
in with the Reader’s Humour and Opinion.

The peculiarity of this title led probably to
the collection being examined by Barrett in the
course of researches in Swift’s early life. These
researches were undertaken in consequence of a
tradition that towards the close of his college
career Swift figured in the character of a terrae
filius, and as a result of the speech delivered by
him was expelled. By his researches Barrett
disproved that Swift had been a terrae filius or
expelled, but he came to the conclusion that
the speech, which he found in The Whimsical
Medley and which had been delivered by one who
is known to have been Swift’s friend, had been
composed by Swift. In arriving at that conclu-
sion, Barrett relied on the fact that Swift was on

8 INSPIRATION OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

several occasions in conflict with the college
authorities, and on resemblances between passages
in the speech and in Swift’s acknowledged writings.
On account of its scurrility, John Forster has
laboured in his Life of Swift to dissociate him from
all connexion with it. But a dispassionate reader
will neither be disposed to agree with Barrett
that the speech was the work of Swift alone, nor
with Forster that there is nothing in it which
recalls Swift. ' The speech is probably the work
of various minds ; and whether Swift wrote them
or not, there are passages in it which were in his
recollection at later periods of his life.

With the prose, which resembles in its dog- Latin
the speech of 1685 so closely as to suggest that
the same person was engaged on both, these pages
are not concerned, but five distinct pieces ’ of
verse which the speech contains call for notice.
In the opinion of Barrett, they all breathe in a
greater or less degree the spirit of Swift, and were
all his work; but they differ considerably in
style and quality, 'as well as in metre, and are
not likely to have been written by the same
person. In one of the pieces, which is" in octo-
syllabic couplets, there is undoubtedly a familiar
ring to those accustomed to Swift’s verse, and
there seems sufficient ground to attribute it to
him. It is headed Heroic Poem, and it has
for its subject the vice-provost of Swift’s time,
who lives in the annals of the college as the
courageous defender of its rights against the
encroachments of James the Second.(I6) Its
keynote is found in the lines :

1682-1689

9

A Mortall Enemy to Punning,

Nor mightily inclin’d to Running,

He still with Care did Guard his Hart
From all the Wounds of Cupid’s dart.(17)

Besides it, there is a piece on a beau of the
time, Thomas Weaver by name, which displays
in a remarkable degree the intensity for which
Swift became afterwards so celebrated. The
piece tells us that Weaver —

Can sett his Fore Top, Manage well his Wigg ;

Can Act a Proverb, and can dance a Jigg ;

Does sing French Songs, can Rhime and furnish Chatt
T ’inquisitive Miss from Letter or Gazett ;

Knows the Affair of Cock Pitt and the Race,

And who were Conquerors at either Place ;

If Crop or Trotter took the Prize, away,

And who a Fortune gain’d the other day ;

He swings Fringe Gloves, sees Plays, writes Billedoux,
Fill’d up with Beauty, Love, Oaths, Lyes and Vows.(18)

The general impression is that Swift showed
no glimmer of his peculiar • gifts and future
ability during his college days, and so far as his
undergraduate course, from his fifteenth to his
nineteenth year, is concerned, this impression
finds justification in his autobiography if read
superficially. In his autobiography he says,
what is known from other sources, that he failed
to qualify for the degree of a bachelor of arts
and obtained that degree only by special favour,
and he adds that the ground of his failure was
dullness and insufficiency^ 19) But he leaves it
open to doubt whether in giving the grounds

10 INSPIRATION OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE ,

he was expressing his own opinion or the opinion
of others. It has been discovered that he did
well in Latin and Greek, (20) and it may be in-
ferred from his incidental reference to his having
applied himself to reading history and poetry,
that he was not idle.

It seems impossible that Swift can have showed
in the attainment of general knowledge the dull-
ness and insufficiency attributed to him in regard
to the curriculum of his day, and it is certain that
he numbered amongst his college friends men
who were not likely to have chosen an ignoramus
as their associate. During his candidate-master’s
course, from his nineteenth to his twenty-second
year. Swift was undoubtedly guilty of two
breaches of college discipline, but he had no
reason to be ashamed, from an academic point
of view, of those in whose company he erred. On
the first occasion, in the spring of 1687, when he
was one of seven residents in the college who were
admonished for not discharging their academic
obligations and for spending their time in the city,
all Swift’s companions, with a single exception,
graduated ; one was both a sizar and a scholar ;
two were sizars ; and two were scholars. Again,
in the winter of 1688, when he was one of six
residents in the college who were suspended for
setting the authority of the junior dean at defiance,
all his companions graduated, and one was both
a sizar and a scholar. In addition it may be
remarked that in both cases his companions were
men of good antecedents. One, a fellow-com-
moner, was the son of a government official,

1682-1689

11

another was the son of a knight, and three were
sons of clergymen .(21)

In his college days Swift laid also the founda-
tion of his friendship with St. George Ashe, then
a fellow and his own college tutor, and Dillon
Ashe, then a scholar. It is only necessary to say
here that St. George Ashe was one of the most
distinguished men of his day, “.noted for his
great knowledge of most sciences as well as of
tongues, ”(22) and became provost of the college
at the age of thirty-five and a bishop at the age
of thirty -eight, and that Dillon Ashe was thought
worthy to preach before the Irish House of
Commons (23) and to be an archdeacon. As well
as with them, Swift laid in his college days a friend-
ship with John Jones, the terrae Alius in 1688,
who was then a sizar and a scholar, and who
became “ the most eminent schoolmaster in all
Ireland ”(24) ; with Henry Tenison, the son of
one of the foremost Irish bishops of that day,
who became a member of parliament and a com-
missioner of the revenue, and is seen by his will,
made while he was still a young man, to have
been both accomplished and highminded (25) ;
and with Theophilus Butler and Brinsley Butler,
two brothers, who were created respectively
Lord Newtown Butler and Viscount Lanesborough,.
and were highly popular and valued members of
society as well in England as in Ireland.

About the year 1688 Swift was undoubtedly
laying the foundations of his peculiar style in
versification. Of this the proof is afforded by
an interesting relic in the possession of Mr. Joseph

12 INSPIRATION OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

Christie, of Newtown House near Swords in the
county of Dublin. It is a small volume contain-
ing an almanac and prognostication for the year
1666 with an account of the highways and fairs
of Ireland, and unprinted interleaved pages which
are covered by ballads and other topical verses
in the handwriting of Swift. Of this manuscript
Sir William Wilde made use in his Closing Years
of the Life of Dean Swift, but Wilde has fallen
into some errors through taking the pieces in the
order in which they appear in the volume, and
not in the order in which they were written by
Swift. According to the present arrangement of
the leaves in the volume, Swift appears to have
begun to write towards the end of the volume,
and to have returned when he reached the end to
the beginning. Whether this was so, or that the
order of the leaves has been altered in binding the
volume, is immaterial. There can be no ques-
tion that, following the present pagination, Swift
began to write on page seventy-seven and con-
tinued to write to page eighty-eight, and that
he returned to page seven and continued to write
at the same period to page seventeen, where a
change occurs in the colour of the ink.

The pieces contained in the foregoing pages of
.the volume are : (i) Upon Nothing ; (ii) The
Catholic Ballad, or An Invitation to Popery upon
considerable Grounds and Reasons; (iii) Room
for a Ballad, or A Ballad for Rome, being A
Continuation of the Catholic Ballad inviting to
Popery upon the best Grounds and Reasons that
could ever be produced ; (iv) On Rome’s Pardons ;

1682-1689

IS

(v) The Council, or The Composing a Prayer for
the Unborn Prince of Wales ; (vi) The Miracle ;
(vii) A Paper put in the King’s Shoe ; (viii)
A Paper found in the Kang’s Room; (ix) The
Prince of Orange : A Packet of Advice ; and
(x) The Packet-boat returned. By Sir William
Wilde, Swift was believed to have been author
of all these pieces, excepting Upon Nothing and
On Rome’s Pardons, which were stated by Swift
to have been written by the Earl of Roscommon,
but the Catholic Ballad and Room for a Ballad
are known to have been written by Walter Pope,
an Oxford don, and the pieces which concern the
birth of James the Second’s son are written with
a facility in versification that Swift did not possess
at the time of their composition^ 26) Evidently
their preservation was for the purpose of using
them as models. In his attempt to prove that
Swift was the author of the pieces Sir William
Wilde laid great stress on variations between the
versions in the manuscripts and those in printed
collections of the time. But it is possible that
Swift beljeved in his ability to improve on the
author’s work, or that he may have copied from a
printed" version no longer available which con-
tained the variations. In the piece entitled The
Miracle, some sixteen variations between two,,
printed versions have been noted.

NOTES

1. Elijah Fenton appears to be the earliest authority
for Dryden’s words. See Sir Henry Craik’s Life of
Swift, 1894, i. 45 ; Dryden’s Works, 1882, i. 314, xiii. 112.

14 INSPIRATION OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

2. Goldsmith’s Works, 1884, iv. 418, v. A 15.

3. Johnson’s Lives of the Poets.

4. Essays illustrative of The Tatler, by Nathan
Drake, 1805, iii. 150.

5. Lectures on the English Poets by William Hazlitt,
lecture vi.

6. Craik, op. eit., ii. 262.

7. Diet. Nat. Biog., 1893, xxxvi. 216.

8. Ormonde Manuscripts, Hist. MSS. Com., N.S.,
vi. 421.

9. Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 38673.

10. As at Cambridge, the speech of the terrae filius
and the terrae filius himself was called tripos at Dublin.
The terrae filius was always a bachelor of arts, which
has enabled the year of Brady’s Tripos to be fixed.

11. An Essay on the earlier part of the Life of Swift
by John Barrett, 1808, p. 10.

12. John Rochfort, immortalized by Swift as Nimrod,

13. Gulliveriana, p. 132.

14. A Duel between Two Doctors (infra, p. 55). The

two pieces were published with Speed’s Counter Scuffle
in 1708, the title of the volume being — The Counter
Scuffle : Whereunto is Added A Duel between Two
Doctors : With an Elege on the Lord Chief Baron Heim’s
Connaught Pig. r

15. Henry Tenison, whose father was from 1682 to
1690 Bishop of Killala.

16. Richard Acton.

17. Barrett, op. cit., p. 73.

18. Ibid., p. 50.

19. Life of Swift by John Forster, 1875, p. 12.

20. Ibid., p. 38.

21. Barrett, op. cit., pp. 10, 14; cf. Alumni Dublinenses,
by G. D. Burtchaell and T. U. Sadleir.

22. This character is given to St. George Ashe by John
Dunton, who refers to him as a man of worth and humility,

1682-1689

15

and attributes his early promotion to hard study and
foreign travel. Ashe recommended himself to Dunton
as a generous buyer at his book sales, and testified to
Dunton’s justice and fair dealing. The Dublin Scuffle,
1699, pp. 52, ISO.

23. See A Sermon preach’d before the Honourable
House of Commons at St. Andrew’s Church, Dublin,
January the 31st, 1703/4, by Dillon Ashe, D.D., Dublin,

1704.

24. This character is another given by Dunton (op.
cit., p. 131). He says that Jones was universally beloved,
and that his conversation was coveted. His success
did not surprise Dunton, who found that he was seldom
outbid at his auction and did not lose his time by being
busy about nothing. In conference he was found by
Dunton a person of great piety and of a most sweet
disposition, as well as free from vice, being above the
ends that make men wicked. It may be remarked that
Jones obtained his degree of bachelor of arts, like Swift,
speciali gratia. For some particulars regarding him see
Swift’s Correspondence, 1910, i. 45, n. 2.

25. A reference to Tenison in the Journal to Stella
shows that he was a most intimate and mueh-loved
friend of Swift’s. His will was made and proved in
1709, the ^respective days being September 21 and
October 14.

26. These pieces are to be found in A Collection of the
Newest and Most Ingenious Poems, Songs, Catches etc.
against Popery, 1689 ; The Muse’s Farewell to Popery
and Slavery, 1690 ; Poems on Affairs of State, 1703 ;
A New Collection of Poems relating to State Affairs,

1705.

CHAPTER II

PINDARIC AND HEROIC ABERRATION
Ann. Dom. 1689-1694. Aet. suae 21-26.

Before the age of fifteen Swift was an admirer
of the poetical works of Abraham Cowley, the
idol of the Restoration period, who enjoyed for
some decades after his death a great reputation
as the inventor of the English pindaric ode and
as a writer of heroic verse,(l) and after Swift
came to England and began to live with Sir
William Temple in the spring of 1689, he devoted
himself to an attempt to imitate Cowley’s intri-
cate stanzas and stately couplets. Two of Swift’s
efforts in pindaric verse have been hitherto dated
as if written immediately after his arrival at
Temple’s celebrated residence, Moor Park, near
Farnham, but a letter of his own shows that one
of these was not completed until several years
later and the other did not probably take its
final form until about the same time.

The first piece of Swift’s that can be dated
* without doubt is the Ode to King William on
his Successes in Ireland, and this ode is not in
pindaric verse but in quatrains, similar to those
used by Dryden in his Heroic Stanzas on the
Death of Oliver Cromwell. Of the date of this
ode, which was circulated sufficiently to enable

the compiler of The Whimsical Medley to obtain

16

1689-1694

17

a copy, (2) there can be no doubt. Its contents
show that it must have been composed at the
close of the year 1690 or at the beginning of the
year 1691. It opens thus :

To purchase kingdoms and to buy renown,

Are arts peculiar to dissembling France ;

You, mighty monarch, nobler actions crown.

And solid virtue does your name advance.

Your matchless courage with your prudence joins,
The glorious structure of your fame to raise ;

With its own light your dazzling glory shines.

And into adoration turns our praise.

These stanzas are followed by others of involved
and hollow panegyric. If William had come to
the throne by dull succession, says the poet,
his merit would not have been fully known, but
now his worth must have its just rewards. Timely
he snatched Britain from the jaws of Rome, and
gloriously he preserves his conquest by his arm,
on which Europe now depends. With amaze-
ment his action at the Boyne was seen : his
design startled even Schomberg, and the impulse,
the -fight and the event were wholly his own.
By his success his foes are disarmed : in vain
by secret malice or open force does France
endeavour to interrupt the fortune of his career. „
Deeds that must employ all tongues are about to
commence, and William is hailed as the pledge
and earnest of England’s glory and her lasting joy.

It is said by Swift himself that this ode was
written in Ireland, and it is known from other
sources that he returned to Ireland after the Battle
2

18 PINDARIC AND HEROIC ABERRATION

of the Boyne for his health or more probably in
the hope of obtaining employment there. Besides
this ode he wrote then, as Mr. Christie's little
volume evidences, some pieces in the familiar
style. As has been mentioned, a change in the
colour of the ink occurs in Mr. Christie’s
volume at the end of the pieces to which atten-
tion has been directed in the first chapter, and
a fresh start is made with a piece entitled The
Gentlemen at Large’s Litany. The Litany is
followed by A Ballad to the Tune of Chevy Chase,
and the Ballad by some lines headed Mrs. Butler,
the Player in Ireland, to Mrs. Bracegirdle, her
Correspondent in London, the three pieces, which
were copied into the volume together, relating
to society in Dublin after the Battle of the Boyne.

Whether these pieces were composed by Swift,
or copied by him, like the preceding ones, as
models, is open to question. As the contents of
The Whimsical Medley show, there were in
Dublin in the reign of William and Mary several
persons engaged in writing verse of the kind.
Their talents were mainly used in the production
of lampoons on the viceregal circle. On" the
departure of William from Ireland, the govern-
ment was vested in two lords justices, Henry,
Viscount Sidney, who was afterwards created
Earl of Romney, and Thomas Coningsby, who
was afterwards created Lord Clanbrazil arid
Earl Coningsby, and was held up to odium by
Prior in The Viceroy. Three months later, in
December 1690, Sidney was called to office in
England, his place as a lord justice being taken

1689-1694

19

by the lord chancellor. Sir Charles Porter, but the
terror of husbands, as Sidney has been called, seems
to have been sufficiently long in Dublin to stamp
the viceregal circle with a libertine reputation.
One of the lampoons, entitled Advice to a Painter
to draw the late Ball at Clancarty House, was
written in the autumn of 1690, while the sword
was still held by Sidney and Coningsby, who are
represented in it as surrounded by a very immoral
court; and three of the others were written in
the beginning of the year 1692, on the occasion of a
representation of D’TJrfey’s play Love for Money by
amateurs in the Archbishop of Dublin’s palace.
As Swift was again at Moor Park with Sir William
Temple when the last pieces were written, he
cannot have been the author of any one of them ;
and as he was in the autumn of 1690 seeking
government favour, he is not'likely to have indited
an attack on the lords justices, such as the Advice
to a Painter was.

But so far as The Gentlemen at Large’s Litany
is concerned, it seems certain that it was by Swift.
It cannot liave been copied as a model, as it is
incorrect in its numbers and uneven and forced'
in its composition, and from the fact that it is
not one of the pieces in The Whimsical Medley it
is not likely to have been circulated. The follow-
ing are a few of the verses :

From quarrelling amongst ourselves without
Somebody to hold us from going out,

From handling cold iron, being stout.

Libera nos Domine.

20 PINDARIC AND HEROIC ABERRATION

From playing ai cards in the room above stairs,

And losing our money with a bon air,

To gratify the lady that’s not very fair.

Libera nos Domine.

From the steward’s rebukes, the comptroller’s smile,
Bestowed with a grace enough to beguile
One out of his way a Yorkshire mile,

Libera nos Domine.

But the strongest internal evidence that Swift
was the writer lies in the wording of a final note :
“ This Litany would have been longer, but that
the author knew these gentlemen’s constitutions
can as ill endure long as frequent prayers.”

For the same reasons the Ballad to the Tune of
Chevy Chase seems also to have been by Swift.
The dramatis personae are the chief baron of the
Exchequer and the chief justice of the Common
Pleas, and the date of the composition must have
been the spring of 1691, after the judges had
returned from the first circuit after the Battle of
the Boyne. It opens thus :

God prosper long our government,

The lords and ladies all ;

A woeful quarrel lately did
At Lord Chief Baron’s fall.

To combat ladies bold and brave
Lord Pyne found out the way ;

His brother Kit might live to rue
Making him drunk that day.

The third piece, Mr?. Butler, the Player in
Ireland, to Mrs. Bracegirdle, her Correspondent

1689-1694

21

in London, is written with more care and smooth-
ness. This piece, which was circulated suffi-
ciently to gain a place in The Whimsical Medley,
is a lampoon on the female leaders of society in
Dublin. Incidentally Lord Sidney is mentioned
and is designated as good-natured, which was no
doubt the view Swift took then of him, although
at a later period he saw reason to change his
opinion. The Dublin actress begins thus to
the London one:

Mars, my dear friend, was so triumphant grown.
Such civil wars before were never known ;

They were so prejudicial to my trade,

I scarce could live both by the gown and blade ;
But now, I hope, thanks to our kinder stars,

1 We shall have here no more intestine jars ;

and proceeds then to mention the Dublin ladies
of the time and their attributes, moral and im-
moral.^)

After Swift’s return in the summer of 1691 from
his visit to Ireland, he went to see his mother at
Leicester, and thence set out for Moor Park,
paying on his way a visit to Oxford, where one
of his aunts, the mother of his cousin Thomas
Swift, was then residing. Whether as a result
of that visit or not, he applied himself for a
considerable time after his return to Moor Park,
which took place about Christmas, to attaining
proficiency in pindaric verse. Writing to his
cousin Thomas Swift in May 1692, he says that
for the study of poetry he considers two hours in
the morning the flower of the day, and that he

22 PINDARIC ANI) HEROIC ABERRATION

uses it for the purpose of writing pindarics.
But he does so only if lie is in the humour, and
seldom is able to write two stanzas of an ode in
a week. In a burst of confidence lie adds, what
he would not have the world know for a million,
that he is overfond of his own writings, and when
he composes what pleases him he is a second
Cowley to himself, and can read it a hundred
times .(4)

It is from this letter that it is known that one
of his pindarie odes, hitherto dated May 1689, An
Ode to Dr. William Sancroft, was not completed
until three years later, and that the supposition
has been drawn that a similar ode, hitherto
dated June 1689, An Ode to the Hon. Sir William
Temple, was an analogous case. (5) Anything
more unlike Swift’s later verse than the ode to
Temple could not be imagined, and the disorder
of the stanzas is only surpassed by the obscurity
of the matter. The ode opens with the following
lines of fulsome flattery :

Virtue, the greatest of all monarchies !

Till, its first emperor, rebellious man.

Depos’d from off his scat,

It fell and broke with its own weight
Into small states and principalities,

By many a petty lord possess’d,

But ne’er since seated in one single breast.

’Tis you who must this land subdue,

The mighty conquest’s left for you.

The conquest and discovery too :

Search out this Utopian ground.

Virtue’s Terra Incognita,

1689-1694

23

Where none ever led the way,

Nor ever since but in descriptions found ;

Like the philosopher’s stone,

With rules to search it, yet obtain’d by none.

The poet then goes on to say that the world
had been led astray in seeking to find virtue by
rules taken from musty morals, and in believing
that learning hides all its treasures in the deep
grave of a book. In that way knowledge is
purchased at the expense of breeding and sense,
and forfeits all humanity. Thrice happy is
Temple to have escaped the general pest. In
him the souls of Virgil, Epicurus and Caesar are
united, and round his head, crowned with the
bays of the Nimeguen peace, the lightning plays
like lambent fire. By him the wily shifts of
state have been exposed and the mountain has
been shown to be shaken by a mouse. What
serpent is it, asks the poet, that lurks in palaces
and courts and has sent Temple thence ? With
that basilisk he oft renewed the fight, but unable
to overcome her, and tired with loss of time and
care, he resolved to give himself, as he had done
his country, peace.

; The poet’s muse is then invoked to sing of
the pleasures of retreat, and to publish over the
plain how mighty a proselyte nature has gained.
In this new, scene Temple is expected to explain
how the kernel grows into a tree, and whence
it takes its increase and its birth, and he is assured
that his garden is better worth his pain than a
barren court. In conclusion the poet turns to

24 PINDARIC AND HEROIC ABERRATION

himself, and asks how so divine a spirit as Temple’s
can be cast in the same mould as his own. He
tells how nature lias bound him to the muse’s
gallies, and how, when in vain he tugs and pulls
the oar, the muse stops his complaining breath
with promise of a mad reversion after death.
By indolence and ease the spark infused by nature
at his birth has been kindled and made intem-
perate by praise. In vain all wholesome herbs
he sows. By an equivocal birth whatever he
plants runs up to poetry.

The date of the completion of another of
Swift’s pindaric pieces, the Ode to the Athenian
Society, (6) is known to have been February 14,
1692, just six weeks after his return to Moor Park
from Ireland. The knot of obscure men who
composed this society had then for a year been
dispensing universal knowledge through a journal
conducted on the lines of Notes and Queries.
While visiting Oxford, Swift had heard some
very learned gentlemen speak of the journal
with admiration, and finding on his return to Moor
Park that Temple was enthusiastic about it. Swift
poured forth his eulogium. As he tells his cousin,
in the letter already cited, the ode was all rough
drawn in a week and finished in two days after, a
dispatch which he attributed to his being zealous
in the cause of the society, for he took it to be “a
part of the honesty of poets that they cannot write
well except the subject deserves it.” The ode
opens with lines likening the effects of the Revolu-
tion to the effects of the Flood, a simile which
may have been due to Swift’s recent experience

1689-1694

25

of the desolation in Ireland, and picturing philo-
sophy rising above the devastation :

As when the Deluge first began to fall,

That mighty ebb never to flow again,

When this huge body’s moisture was so great.

It quite overcame the vital heat ;

That mountain which was highest first of all
Appear’d, above the universal main,

To bless the primitive sailor’s weary sight.

And ’twas perhaps Parnassus, if in height
It be as great as ’tis in fame,

And nigh to Heaven as is its name ;

So, after th’ inundation of a war.

When learning’s little household did embark,

With her world’s fruitful system, in her sacred ark,
At the first ebb of noise and fears,

Philosophy’s exalted head appears ;

And the Dove-Muse will now no longer stay.

But plumes her silver wings, and flies away ;

And now a laurel wreath she brings from far.

To crown the happy conqueror,

To shew the flood begins to cease,

And brings the dear reward of victory and peace*

The poet’s muse, after making an humble
chaplet for the king — the ode which Swift wrote
in Ireland — discovers a country where songs of
nature and art, philosophy and love, charm the
ear* By the poet the great unknown and far
exalted men who inhabit it are asked to pardon
the wild excursions of a youthful pen, and to
forgive a young and almost virgin muse* Imper-
tinence has two factions, the good-natured, and
the ill-natured, those in whom merit begets

26 PINDARIC AND HEROIC, ABERRATION

admiration and praise, the poet being one of them,
and those who make railing a rule of wit and
obloquy a trade. To such as Pluto’s helm wisely
shrouds, follies arc perhaps visible in both, in the
one case cause for pity and in the other for
laughter. By the war wit has been made as
narrow as trade, and the wits, or rather atheists,
of the age owning the effects of providence, yet
denying the cause, will say that the great unknown
are a crowd of atoms. But the poet is content
to believe that the scene is moved by exalted
men. Fame does not consist in an empty
name : it is to be found in the seat of virtue and
religion with which those addressed are alone
acquainted. To the poet the great unknown
seem to have been transformed into water,
flame and air, so well do they explain all
phenomena. By them philosophy has been
divested of the strange habits in which suc-
ceeding ages have clothed her, and restored to
her looks of Heaven.

Then turning to himself the poet says that the
muse changes all his thoughts and ' transfers
them to beauty and the praise of her own tyrant
sex, and he complains that the great unknown
increase the pride and cruelty of women, who
boast of the platonic champions they have
gained without one female wile. Let that vain
sex dream on. Though the great unknown have
raised women, they have raised men as well, and
for the poet it is pride and happiness enough
to be of the same sex as their benefactors. He
sighs when he thinks how fleeting and vain are

1689-3694

27

learning and wit, and grieves that the noble
work of the great unknown may fall at last to
interest, folly and abuse. There is a noon-tide
in men’s lives, and no conquest carried by one
mighty hero to its height ever flourished under
either a successor or a son. When the animating
mind is fled, the body, though gigantic, lies cold
and dead. Thus it will fare with the unhappy
men who dare to be successors of the great
unknown. Censure, pedantry and pride, the
poet foresees, will with blind rage break all
peaceful government, yet traces of the great
unknown shall remain sufficient to tell the vast
.extent of their conquest, and to show how
strange a paradox is true —

That men who liv’d and died without a name

Are the chief heroes in the sacred list of fame.

The only other pindaric piece by Swift which
survives is the Ode to Dr. William Sancroft,
late Lord Bishop of Canterbury .(7) Zeal for his
cause did not ensure speed in composition, and
the ude hung heavy on Swift’s hands. When
writing to his cousin, in May 1692, he says that in
five months he had written but nine stanzas.
Half of them, he adds, did not please him, and the
ode was then not nearly finished. Although
shorter than the one to the Athenian Society,
the ode is sufficiently long to show that even
then Swift’s versatility was extraordinary and
that depth of religious conviction, a quality too
often hidden under a cloak of profaneness.

28 PINDARIC AND HEROIC ABERRATION

was already manifest in liis character. In his
.opening lines the poet says :

Truth is eternal, and the Son of Ileav’n,

Bright effluence of th’ immortal ray,

Chief cherub, and chief lamp, of that high sacred Seven,
Which guard the throne by night, and arc its light by day :
First of God’s darling attributes,

Thou daily secst him face to face,

Nor does thy essence fix’d depend on giddy circum-
stance

Of time or place,

Two foolish guides in ev’ry sublunary dance :

How shall we find Thee then in dark disputes ?

How shall we search Thee in a battle gain’d,

Or a weak argument by force maintain’d ?

In dagger contests, and th’artillery of words,

(For swords are madmen’s tongues, and tongues are
madmen’s swords),

Contriv’d to tire all patience out.

And not to satisfy the doubt ?

Even the image of truth, the poet goes on,(8) is
not easily found in a world which is but a dusky
shade of Heaven. From that world there pass
weak shapes, wild and imperfect, as sunbeams
shot too far from the glass produce in it mimic
forms in strange postures and uncomely dress, or
again as Cartesian artists show figures inverted
and colours of a faded hue. Such are the ways
of ill-guided mortals when they judge things
above by things below. It is not wonderful
that men talk amiss, for the poet is doubtful
whether even his muse can tell the place which
the ghost of the bright essence haunts.

1689-1694

29

But if virtue, submission and humility are the
best resemblances of it, Swift believes that truth
finds its brightest pattern on earth in Sancroft,
in the divinity of his retreat. To explain nature’s
laws, errors are propounded by men, and the
weathercock of state is believed by the herd to
be firmly hung on the pinnacle of the church
while there is no wind, and when it is turned by
a blast of fate, it is thought that the church has
moved. Thus to fools, who suppose that truth,
like all the world, is their own, holy Saneroft’s
motion appears irregular. It is vain for the
muse to try to influence the multitude : rather
let her make the poet’s words like daggers and
fire. Too easy government and too great pros-
perity have caused weeds to grow until they shade
the royal rose, which is too free from thorns.
The poet, who is left no province but to rail,
asks for forgiveness for his ill-governed zeal.
None but Sancroft and his Almighty Master
knew how to bear the giddy turns of popular rage.
Although he should be ill-understood as equalling
the sin of. his countrymen to that of the Jews,
the poet' fears that the spirit of the Jews is in
some of Albion’s sons. In reviling His great
ambassador they discover what they would have
done to Heaven’s Almighty Son. But zeal is
weak and ignorant, though proud and turbulent,
and is like the medley in the idol’s toes, which
crumbles into dust, or moulders into rust, or melts
away at the first shower. Nothing is fixed that
mortals see or know, unless some stars, and these
show on earth like all transcendent excellence.

30 PINDARIC AND HEROIC ABERRATION

False mediums cheat men, and far exalted objects
lessen by their height. Thus primitive Sancroft
moves too high to be obscured, and rolls on his
own sphere, shedding, though unseen, his influence
on earth.

Why should the church be led by the state,
asks the poet, and laid waste to mend the state’s
dilapidations ? The world, whose eyes are on
England’s prince, thinks that William’s subjects
have had their sins cancelled by Heaven and that
they share his influence, but wicked kings draw
more examples than good. Weary with the
weight of a declining church, oppressed by
faction, and finding the mitre almost as heavy
as the crown, Sancroft has wisely retreated to his
heavenly rest. May no unkind earthquake erf
the state disturb his present mitre, as a storm of
late swept up whole churches. Such was the
storm that inwreathed Saneroft’s mitre, like his
Master’s crown, with thorns. But now the bitter
cup is passed, and whether his action was modera-
tion or fortitude, human reason must decide.

In the exaltation of his retreat, Sancroft shows
glimmering of the prelate glorified. Why shbuld
the sun be proud to lodge behind a golden cloud ?
Though fringed with evening gold, the cloud is but
a low-born vapour kindled by a ray. At length
it is overblown, and no deflowered eye can face
the naked light. Yet this perfection proceeds
from strength of its own seed. The world bears
but one branch of gold, on which the spirit lodges
like the dove, and which, transplanted to Heaven,
will improve to be the brightest plant there.

1689-1694

31

For whatever theologic levellers dream, the poet
knows there are degrees above, and as chief of
the mitred saints Sancroft shall be given a high-
spirited throne, translated from his being arch-
prelate here to be archangel there.

Since through blindness or fate Sancroft has
been lost to the church, the poet begs the power-
ful blessing of his prayers. What was the
nation’s crime that sent wild reformers to tear
religion’s lovely face, and strip her of every orna-
ment and grace ? Religion now lies on her death-
bed, and physicians swarm to show their mortal
skill. Reformers and physicians are the same
and have one end and design, the death of the
patient and gain. But the angry muse is bid
to check her satire or to choose a more worthy
subject. Since Heaven and Cato are pleased, she
is not to allow the outcasts of this outcast age
to provoke her rage nor to permit her mighty
spirit to be raised.

Swift was himself conscious of the obscurity
of his pindarics. He confesses to his cousin in
his letter of May 1692 that he cannot write
anything easy to be understood, even were it
but in praise of an old shoe, and proposes to send
him as proof of the truth of what he says a
piece called The Ramble, which was addressed
to one of the “ twenty young women ” to whom
he had paid attention before that time. As well
as the odes, a translation of Virgil then occupied
him. Like the odes, it stuck “ plaguily ” on
his hands. Only two hundred lines had been
written, and those not without the omission of

32 PINDARIC AND HEROIC ABERRATION

two passages, which with any meaning he could
give them looked “ confounded silly nonsense
in English.” Their omission was naturally not
approved of by Temple, who liked the translation
otherwise, and an appeal for help is made by
Swift to his cousin, who had boasted that he could
make a set of verses in a morning.

According to Sir Walter Scott, (9) in that
summer of 1092, during a short residence at
Oxford for the purpose of taking the degree of
master of arts, Swift wrote in light octosyllabic
quatrains an English version of Horace’s Ode
Non ebur neque aureum. The attribution of this
version to Swift has been adopted eagerly by
John Forster, (10) and with some reserve by Sir
Henry Craik.(ll) But this version has been
claimed as the work of another. Thirty-five
years later it was printed by James Arbuckle, a
poet quite capable of writing it, and stated by
him most definitely to be his own composition.(12)

The attempt to forestall Dry den’s great work
was doubtless in heroic couplets, and before the
close of the following year, 1693, that verse had
wholly superseded the pindarics in Swift’s estima-
tion. Two poems in heroic couplets which were
written then survive, one being To Mr. Congreve,
which is dated November, and the other being
Occasioned by Sir William Temple’s late Illness
and Recovery, which is dated December.(13)
The tribute to Congreve was written with the
idea of its being printed with one of Congreve’s
plays. Whether Congreve ever saw it is doubt-
ful. Writing at the beginning of December to

1689-1694

33

his cousin, Swift asked whether Congreve’s play,
The Double Dealer, which was then being acted,
had been well, ill or indifferently received, and
says that his sending the poem to Congreve de-
pends upon the answer.(14) The poet opens the
tribute with the lines :

Thrice, with a prophet’s voice and prophet’s pow’r,
The Muse was called in a poetic hour.

And insolently thrice, the slighted maid
Dared to suspend her unregarded aid ;

and says that on these occasions she chid his zeal
as unpoetic fire. Now the verse is hers, for none
but divine power could leap the bounds which
part Congreve from the poet. On her side there
is no mean design of making use of the eagle’s
wing for a perch from which a wren may sing.
Godlike is the force of Congreve’s bays in assist-
ing the poet’s pride, which looks with scorn on
half mankind and averts from them the judge-
ment of his pen.

The age is spared because the poet’s hopes
are fixed on Congreve to reform the stage. He
believes that never did a poetic mind produce
a richer vein or clearer ore than Congreve’s, and
he beholds with indignation the vile pretenders
who maintain their stock by scraps and filings
from Congreve’s brain. Notwithstanding that
they pad thus on wit’s high-road they do not
cease to criticize, but they cannot obscure
Congreve’s light, any more than swarms of gnats
can rob the world of day. Congreve would blush
to know the birth of those who cause him to
3

34 PINDARIC AND HEROIC ABERRATION

stoop ignobly in fear. By the poet, the nest
in which they lay before becoming city butterflies
has been searched, and they have been found to be
country-bred in the poet’s own scene ; they have
adjourned from spinning tops and learning gram-
mar to the inns where schoolboys sprout into
beaux. Thus a lad near Moor Park, sent a year
before to town, returned that summer a finished
spark, and aroused the anger of the poet, whose
lash is destined to make sin and folly bleed,
by boasting of his acquaintance with Congreve,
and of his having advised him not to write
heroics, for tragedy would prove his doom.
Fools live in a sort of dream, and delude them-
selves into believing that they keep high company,
and if the vilest scribbler, whose name shall not
secure immortality by mention in these lines,
should usurp Congreve’s place, the cheat would
pass.

But the muse’s hour is vainly spent in satire
instead of in Congreve’s praise. What matters
it to her if mankind be a fool, since she is happy
in pleasing Temple, he who is all that is good
among the great. With the poet she meets in
a reverend cave, where on a better day some
Druid had her early favour felt, and while she
and the poet prate, he wanders from being a
grave adviser. In conclusion he asks Congreve
to take a lesson from his ode called The Poet,
in which he had advised that beaten paths should
not be retrod, and that fancy should be given
room. Shoals of critics will pronounce the doom
of his verse and rally his muse. Accustomed to

1689-1694

35

her father’s sheep, she will behold with amaze-
ment the chattering throng and avoid the offen-
sive herd. Even now she is retreating far into
the crystal cave, and as she flies, faint inspiration
sickens and the spirit dies. In the descending
sheet Congreve will haply find refreshment for
his mind :

Naught it contains is common or unclean,

And once drawn up is ne’er let down again.

Although in heroic couplets, and the shortest
of the pieces which Swift wrote at that time,
the poem Occasioned by Sir William Temple’s
late Illness and Recovery is almost as obscure as
Swift’s pindarics. In the opening lines the poet
exclaims that it is —

Strange to conceive how the same objects strike
At distant hours the mind with forms so like,

and then describes how his muse appears to him
at the Moor Park stream, where Temple had oft
been her darling theme, with eyes betokening a
glad .farewell to a tempestuous day. She up-
braids the poet because no change had come in
his looks when every cause of grief is past, and
bids him listen while she teaches him to sing.
Lately she has seen ghastly fear on every face as
when a convulsion of nature scatters strange
agues over sickly minds, and shakes the atheists’
knees. This fear caused the best companion of
the best of men to tremble. Even the coun-
tenance of his sister, who was within a few days

36 PINDARIC AND HEROIC ABERRATION

maid, wife and widow, was suffused with tears.
And sables were cast over the faces of the house-
hold, who mourned for the quickening spirit, as
would earth and life if Heaven’s action was sus-
pended for a day.

Such thoughts the muse tells the poet to take,
and to find employment in the fancy furnished
by returning joy. But on seeing that he regards
her not, she pauses and bids him speak and
tender his submission for his neglect. In reply,
the poet tells her that she is the bane of his peace
and the cause of all his woes. Of late she has
grown no more than an amusement for his scorn
and hate. As her meteor blazes above him, she
is believed to be still his. In truth she is no more
than a glittering voice, a painted name, a walking
vapour, like her sister Fame. If she be a female
power, why does she linger beside the dregs of
youth ? She ought to scorn to look upon a wretch
such as the poet, assigned for life to unremitting
grief, and never visited by the smallest ray of
hope. Over the happy, time takes a swift flight,
but over the wretched, he sweeps his scythe with
a heavy pace, and he has as trophies of a *year,
in which his greatest enemy hope has fled, the
havoc in the poet’s looks. To the muse, the
poet owes his restless thoughts, and his scorn
of fools, by them mistook for pride. She had bid
him not to stoop to interest, flattery or deceit,
but ill-presented this grace had bred contempt,
where she intended should come esteem. Always
to be cheated, never to be pleased, is a mad-
ness that has seized no fancy, since the poor

1689-1694 37

content that delusion finds is one false beam
of joy.

There the muse’s enchantment breaks, and
from that time the poet renounces her visionary
power :

And since thy essence on my breath depends,

Thus with a puff the whole delusion ends.

NOTES

1. See Swift’s Letter concerning the Sacramental
Test.

2. Swift’s cousin Mrs. Whiteway had a copy appar-
ently in print. See Nichols’s Literary Illustrations, v. 382.
The piece was included in Swift’s Works by Nichols in
W76. It is suggested by Sir Walter Scott (Works of
Swift, 1824, i. 77) that a piece written in 1689, To Dr.
Sherlock on his not taking the Oaths, was by Swift;
but no confirmation of the attribution has been found in
the matter, execution or circumstances.

3. Mr. W. J. Lawrence (Notes and Queries, 10 S. iii.
266) is inclined to attach a slightly later date to this
piece.

4 fc Swift’s Corr., i. 364.

5. It was included in Swift’s Works by Hawkesworth
in 1755.

6. It appeared in the Supplement to the Fifth Volume
of the Athenian Gazette, 1691, pp. 2-6. In 1725 it was
printed in pamphlet form with the title — Sphinx : A
Poem ascrib’d to certain Anonymous Authors : By the

Revd. Dean S 1. It was included in Swift’s Works

by Hawkesworth in 1755.

7. It was included in Swift’s Works by Nichols in
1789.

8. Miss Strickland gives (Lives of the Queens of

38 PINDARIC AND HEROIC ABERRATION

England, 1852, vii. 412) extracts from a version of this
Ode, “ far superior in perspicuity and polish.” She says
that this version is amongst Cole’s Miscellaneous Manu-
scripts, but it has not been found in those preserved in
the British Museum. She says also (p. 450) that Swift
wrote a pindaric ode on Queen Mary II, which, in Miss
Strickland’s opinion, could not have been worse. Accord-
ing to her, it appeared in the Athenian Oracle, but it
has not been possible to identify it.

9. Op. eit., i. 31. His authority appears to have
been The Hibernian Magazine (July 1775), v. 430. •

10. Op. cit., p. 60.

11. Op. cit., i. 39.

12. A Collection of Letters and Essays on Several
Subjects lately published in The Dublin Journal, London,
1729, ii, 36, 298, 428.

13. They were included in Swift’s Works by Nichols
in 1789. In the poem to Mr. Congreve, Swift mentions
another piece called The Poet.

14. Swift’s Corr., i. SCO.

CHAPTER III

THE DEVELOPMENT OE THE FAMILIAR STYLE
Ann. Dom. 1694-1707. Aet. suae 26-39.

It has been generally assumed that the despon-
dency which pervades the heroic piece on Sir
William Temple’s Illness and Recovery arose
from Swift’s discontent at his dependent position,
but if the piece itself is to be believed, his despon-
dency was caused by his failure to succeed in
the Cowleyan school. The last lines are very
explicit, and the intention expressed in them
was carried into effect by Swift, who made up
his mind that success in lyric or epic poetry was
not to be attained by industry and learning alone,
and resolved, with the robust common sense
which characterized him, to lay aside for ever the
idea of gaining fame by versification of a conven-
tional kind. Indeed for a time he appears to
have abjured every type of metrical composition.
No verses written by him between the years
1693 and 1698 have been found, and in a long
list of books read by him in the year 1697(1) only
two English poetical works are included, namely
Davies’s Nosce te ipsum and Blackmore’s Prince
Arthur, to both of which he would have been
attracted on another ground than that of form.

It is probable that the next piece in verse that

39

40 DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

can be attributed to Swift is one occasioned by
the destruction by fire of the palace of Whitehall
in the opening days of the year 1698, an event
which has given Macaulay a subject for one of
his wonderful word-pictures. Although Swift
still used heroic metre, the piece On the Burning
of Whitehall, (2) which did not get beyond the
stage of revision, is in the familiar style, and
displays the intensity of Swift’s later verse :

This pile was raised by Wolsey’s impious hands.
Built with the church’s patrimonial lands ;

Here bloody Henry kept his cruel court,

Hence sprung the martyrdoms of every sort ;

Weak Edward here, and Mary the bigot,

Did both their holy innovations plot.

The piece goes on then to recount the ill-uses
made of the palace in subsequent reigns and
refers with freedom of language to the debauchery
that the palace walls had witnessed. In the
concluding lines it pictures the conflagration,
which it represents as a just judgement from
Heaven :

Down come the lofty roofs, the cedar burns,

The blended metal to a torrent turns ;

The carvings crackle and the marble rive.

The paintings shrink, vainly the Henrys strive,
Propt by great Holbein’s pencil, down they fall ;

The fiery deluge sweeps and swallows all.

When the palace was burned, Swift was living
at Moor Park. In 1694, just six months after
he had written the heroic piece on Sir William

1694-1707

41

Temple’s Illness and Recovery, he had left
Temple, and had spent the next two years in
Ireland, engaged first in taking holy orders and
afterwards in discharging his parochial duties as
prebendary of Kilroot, but in the summer of
1696 he had returned to Moor Park, and he
remained there until the beginning of 1699, when
Temple died. Before his return he had received
a promise from Temple of his interest in obtaining
for him ecclesiastical preferment in England, and
so certain did he consider himself of it that about
the time of the fire he resigned his Irish prebend.
The retirement of Lord Sunderland, which pre-
ceded the fire by a few days, had removed, however,
the minister to whom he looked for favour, and
t’he piece On the Burning of Whitehall may have
been designed to recommend him to another
patron. In its sentiments the piece, which was
intended to bear as date the anniversary of
Charles the First’s execution, was calculated to
please the extreme section of the whig party,
going as it did in the conclusion so far as to suggest
that, “ Inigo’s famed building ” had been spared
by Providence as the scene of the death of a
tyrant. Owing to this passage the attribution
of the piece to Swift was rejected by Forster, (3)
but it seems well grounded, as the original manu-
script, which was in his own handwriting, is
said to have been corrected by him, and it is
possible that it was on his realizing that he had
been carried by his fervour into expressions
which he was not prepared to justify that he laid
the piece aside.

42 DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

In the year 1698 Swift composed also a piece
which he thought worthy of a place in his Mis-
cellanies.^) It is in octosyllabic metre, and
purports to have been written on ivory memoranda
tablets belonging to a lady. As it has been dated
1706 as well as 1698 it is probable that, although
composed in the former year, the piece Written
in a Lady’s Ivory Table-Book was revised in the
later year, a procedure which as will be seen
Swift adopted in other cases. With the same
intensity as in the lines On the Burning of White-
hall, Swift gives a number of entries from the
tablets : some made by the lady referring to
toilet requirements, and others made by her
admirers containing professions of devotion :

Here you may read, Dear charming saint ;

Beneath A new receipt for paint :

Here, in beau-spelling, Tru tel deth ;

There, in her own, Far an cl breth :

Here, Lovely nymph, pronounce my doom !

There, A safe way to use perfume :

Here, a page fill’d with billet doux ;

On t’other side, Laid out for shoes j

Madam I die without your grace ;

Item, for half a yard of lace.

In conclusion, the author asks who that had wit
would expose it to the chance of being blotted
out by a cloth, and replaced by the nonsense of
some peeping fop, and expresses his own opinion
that for such a book, and such a heart as the
owner’s, the proper tool is a wealthy idiot, “ a
gold pencil tipped with lead.”

1694-1707

43

When the death of Sir William Temple took
place in January 1699, Swift’s future was still in
suspense, and the hope of obtaining a settlement
soon brought into his life the influence of a new
patron in the person of Lord Berkeley, the second
earl and tenth baron of his line, who was then
about fifty years of age. Like Temple, although
a man of very different calibre, Berkeley had been
a diplomatist, and had acted as envoy to Spain
and Holland, but unlike Temple, he was still
living in the world when Swift joined him. For
Berkeley, Swift had at no time much respect,
and he considered that he owed nothing to
him, but through his connexion with Berkeley,
Swift was brought into a situation that left
a mark upon him, and fitted him for the
part that he was to play in the days of Ox-
ford’s ministry. After Temple’s death Swift
lost no time in ingratiating himself with Berke-
ley and his family, and before spring was far
advanced, he is found addressing a very char-
acteristic letter to Berkeley’s eldest daughter,
wha married Thomas Chambers, sometime master
of the Mint, in connexion with a proposal to
send her father as ambassador to Constanti-
nople.^) In this letter Swift said that the idea
of his correspondent’s younger sister, Lady
Betty Berkeley, trusting herself amongst infidels
had caused great concern to Sir William Trum-
bull, who, although he had been himself once
ambassador to the Porte, was “ a man of mean
mind as to courage,” and that Sir William had
flown into raptures which he had addressed after

44 DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

the manner of Cervantes to Lady Betty under
the name of Galatea :

Her charms the limits of an isle disdain,

And spread a powerful empire o’er the main ;

Shall she to barb’rous coasts from hence remove,

And melt their tyrant hearts with flames of love ?

To punish haughty slaves that proudly dare
Triumph o’er beauty and insult the fair.

It may he inferred that Swift had no wish that
Berkeley should exile himself, and he cannot
but have read with pleasure in the middle of May
an announcement in The Post Boy that Berkeley
had “ excused himself to his Majesty and the
Turkey Company as to this employment,” and
with still greater pleasure six weeks later an
announcement in the same journal that Berkeley
was “ going for Ireland in fourteen days to take
upon him the place of one of the lords justices
of that kingdom.”(6)

With Swift in his train, Berkeley set out from
London early in July 1699 for Ireland, ^nd travel-
ling by way of his seat in Gloucestershire and
Bristol, where he embarked, he reached Dublin
in the latter part of August. There before long
Swift found subject for verse in the failings of
his lord, who had mortified him by passing him
over in the appointment of a secretary and in
subordinating his claims to those of another
chaplain when a deanery fell vacant. In The
Discovery, Berkeley is represented as more anxious
about the price of forage than about the welfare

1694-1707

45

of the state, and as finding a willing helper in
testing the markets in his secretary, Arthur
Bushe, who is alleged by Swift to have supplanted
him in the office of secretary :

My lord, said Bushe, a friend and I,

Disguis’d in two old threadbare coats,

Ere morning’s dawn, stole out to spy
How markets went for hay and oats.

With that he draws two handfuls out,

The one was oats, the other hay ;

Puts this to’s excellency’s snout,

And begs he would the other weigh.

This satire was followed by a lampoon of a very
gross .kind ealled The Problem, in which Swift
introduces as well as Berkeley the wife of the
first Viscount Rosse, a daughter of the famous
Lady Tyrconnel by her marriage to Sir George
Hamilton, the wife of Charles O’Neill, an ancestor
of Lord O’Neill, and the wife of Sir Richard
Levinge, the first of the Knockdrin baronets,
then solicitor-general for Ireland and afterwards
one *of the* chief justices. It has been suggested
that Swift’s presentation to Laracor, which was
part of the debris left by his successful rival, was
due to the fact that Berkeley had seen the libels
and dreaded further disclosures; but although
Swift is known to have shown The Discovery to
his friends, there is no indication that he allowed
The Problem to be seen.(7) In the latter, as in
many of Swift’s later pieces, justification is found
for Taine’s criticism that Swift’s mind was prone

46 DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

to dwell upon what was intended to be hidden
and that in revealing his thoughts he spared no
ignoble detail or offensive word.(8)

In Mr. Christie’s volume there is a piece entitled
The Character of a Coxcomb, which was appar-
ently written also in the winter of 1009-1700
by Swift. It describes the members of Dublin
society then frequenting the viceregal court, and
is modelled on a piece entitled The Picture of a
Beau, in which members of London society at that
time were similarly pictured :

As he that would a perfect picture make.

From different faces must the features take,

So he that would the character design
Of a staunch coxcomb must together join
The differing qualities of each fop and beau
That all the play, the strand and castle show.

A year later, in the opening months of 1701,
Swift wrote one of his most celebrated pieces,
Mrs. Harris’s Pctition.( 9) At that time Berkeley’s
connexion with Ireland was drawing to a close,
and his departure was expected at any moment,
being only delayed by the illness of Che Earl of
Drogheda, who was one of the lords justices
designated to succeed Berkeley and his colleague,
and whose arrival at Dublin Castle is mentioned
in the Petition as imminent. In January all
arrangements for the departure of Berkeley and
his colleague, the Earl of Galway, were completed,
but the change in the Irish' government did not
take place until the opening days of April.
While in this state of suspense Mrs. Harris, one of

1694-1707

47

Lady Berkeley’s gentlewomen, lost her purse,
and the Petition tells of her efforts to recover it.
In the Petition, which is written in lines of
immense length, and which Mr. Courthope thinks
may have been suggested by Gammer Gurton’s
Needle, (10) the members of Berkeley’s household
all come under review, and such is the realism
of the picture in this inimitable doggerel composi-
tion that each of them seems to live still and to
be an acquaintance of our own. In turn there
appear Lady Betty Berkeley, then a girl of about
sixteen ; the chaplains. Swift and his Derry
rival ; the steward, “ that beast Ferris ” ; the
clerk of the kitchen; the valet; the house-
keeper ; the footman’s wife ; and the housemaid.

•

So next morning we told Whittle, and he fell a swearing :
Then my Dame Wadgar came, and she, you know, is
thick of hearing.

Dame, said I, as loud as I could bawl, do you know
what a loss I have had ?

Nay, said she, my Lord Colway’s folks are all very
sad :

For my Lord Dromedary comes a Tuesday without
tail.

Pugh ! said I, but that’s not the business that I ail.
Says Cary, says he, I have been a servant this five and
twenty years, come spring,

And in all the places I liv’d I never heard pf such a
thing.

Yes, says the steward, I remember when I was at
my Lady Shrewsbury’s,

Such a thing as this happen’d, just about the time of
gooseberries.

48 DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

Up to this time Swift says that he had given
little heed to the politics of his own day and he
appears in an attitude of detachment in a few
lines in Mr. Christie’s volume, entitled A Fable
yet a True Story, which he wrote on the invidious
position of William the Third in 1700 during the
struggle between the whigs and the tories over
the Resumption Bill :

In Aesop’s Tales an honest wretch we find.

Whose years and comforts equally declined ;

He in two wives had two domestic ills,

For each had different age and different wills ;

One pluck’d his black hairs, t’other pluck’d his grey ;
The man for quietness did both obey,

Till all the parish saw his head quite bare,

And said he wanted sense as well as hair.

The parties henpecked William are thy wives,

The hairs they pluck are thy prerogatives ;

Tories thy person hate, and whigs thy power,

Though much thou yieldcst still they tug higher.

Till thou and this old man alike arc shewn,

He without hairs, and thou without a crown.

But when the ascendancy of the tory party,
which had caused Berkeley’s supersession as a
lord justice, resulted in the spring of 1701 in
the impeachment of the whig ministers, Swift’s
interest in current politics was aroused. At the
moment he was starting with Berkeley for Eng-
land, and while travelling with him he concerted
the Contests and Dissensions in Athens and
Rome, (11) and also probably a piece entitled
A Poem, occasioned by the Hangings in the

1694-1707

49

Castle of Dublin, in which the Story of Phaeton is
Express’d.(12) It refers to the political situation
of that time, picturing William as the eager
charioteer, and Portland, Halifax, Somers and
Orford as the great, the good, the just and the
wise :

If, either void of princely care,

Remiss he holds the slacken’d rein.

If rising heats or mad career.

Unskill’d, he knows not to restrain ;

Or if, perhaps, he gives a loose,

In wanton pride to shew his skill,

How easily he can reduce
And curb the people’s rage at will ;

In wild uproar they hurry on ;

The great, the good, the just, the wise.

Law and religion overthrown.

Are first mark’d out for sacrifice ;

When, to a height their fury grown, '

Finding too late he can’t retire.

He proves the real Phaeton,

. And'truly sets the world on fire.

On Swift’s arrival in London there is ground to
believe that he became allied with the most able
pamphleteer of that day, Dr. Charles Davenant,
who was a maternal uncle of his cousin Thomas
Swift; and that they collaborated in the produc-
tion of a curious tract in which the policy of the
tory party is both denounced and defended in
verse. To the tract, which originated in one
4

50 DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

signed Legion attacking tlie tory attitude with re-
gard to the second partition treaty, and which
was advertised in The Flying Poet of June 28,
1701, the following title is prefixed :

The Ballad, or. Some Scurrilous Reflections
in Verse on the Proceedings of the Honour-
able House of Commons : Answered Stanza
by Stanza with the Memorial, alias Legion,
reply’d to Paragraph by Paragraph.

London : Printed by D. Edwards and Sold
by the Booksellers of London and West-
minster, 1701.

Another tract, which is announced in The
Post Boy of October 2, 1701 , as published that day,
has also much in it that recalls Swift’s acknow-
ledged pieces. Its title is :

A Dialogue between the Cities of London
and Paris in relation to the present Posture
of Affairs, Resolved into Verse and made
applicable to the Disturbances which now
seem to threaten the Peace -of Europe.
Written by a Person who has no money
to pay Taxes in case of a War.

Printed and are to be Sold by the Book-
sellers of London and Westminster, 1701.

In addition there is corroboration of Swift’s
collaboration with Davenant in a letter written
in the summer of that year by Simon Harcourt,
afterwards the first Viscount Harcourt, to Robert
Harley, the future Earl of Oxford. From this

1694-1707

51

letter it appears that Davenant had then a com-
panion, chum he is called, and that this companion
was to be one of a party of five at a mysterious
dinner, the other four being the Duke of Ormonde,
Harley, Harcourt and Davenant.(lS) It was also
at that time that “ the splenetic madman,”
Prince Butler, to whom Swift refers in The
Public Spirit of the Whigs, was in the public
eye, and Swift’s knowledge of him was most
likely to be through Davenant, with whom Prince
Butler had been allied in opposing the prohibition
of the use of Indian silk.(14)

During the next year, 1702, when Swift again
spent six months in England, there appeared a
parody of an address presented to King William
on behalf of the clergy of New England by one
of the most notable of the early colonists, the
Reverend James Blair, president of the College
of William and Mary in Virginia. It contains
many of the phrases in the Dublin effusions of
Swift’s earlier years, and in truly Swiftian style
represents the clergy of New England as unable
to endure the affront offered to William by the
French in dubbing the Pretender, King of Great
Britain :

Wherefore if your foes do persist for to slight you,

We will all of us pray, nay and some of us fight too ;
For like Hogans half-drunk, your polemics, I fancy,

Can club pretty well when inspired with Nantsy ;
Among all the black guard, you can’t miss of an Hector,
Unless you chance light on the Williamsburgh rector ;
Yet we’ll favour the French if we find they’ll be civil,
For be it known that we fear ’em no more than the devil.

52 DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

However we can huff it, if they never come near us.

If they should I am afraid they would damnably scare us.

It was issued as a broadside with the following
heading and imprint :

The Loyal Address of the Clergy of Virginia.

Williamsburgh : Printed for Fr. Maggot, at
the Sign of the Hickery-Tree in Queen-
Street. 1702.(15)

In the same year, while on a visit to Berkeley
Castle, Swift wrote also two other pieces, A Ballad
on the Game of Traffic and A Ballad to the Tune
of the Cutpurse.(16) The first pictures Lord
Berkeley playing cards in his domestic circle.
In the scene there figure Lady Berkeley, two of
her gentlewomen — the famous Mrs. Harris and
Mrs. Weston, and a Dame Floyd, who was probably
the mother of “the happy composition”; and
in an extra stanza composed by Lady Betty
Berkeley, Parson Swift is introduced. Hitherto
this piece has been headed “ written in the time
of the Earl of Berkeley’s government,”, or “ written
at the Castle of Dublin 1699,” but a refereiice to
Jack Howe indicates that it was written after
the Gloucestershire election of December 1701,
and that consequently the castle in which the
scene is laid must have been not Dublin Castle,
but Berkeley Castle. Besides, if Mrs. Weston
and Dame Floyd had been inmates of Dublin
Castle, they would have been inevitably intro-
duced in Mrs. Harris’s Petition. The stanza by
Lady Betty Berkeley was added by her surrep-

1694-1707

53

titiously, and this episode gave rise to the second
piece, which is dated August 1702. The latter is
an imitation of the song of the ballad-singer in
Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair :

Once on a time, as old stories rehearse,

A friar would needs show his talent in Latin ;

But was sorely put to’t in the midst of a verse.

Because he could find no word to come pat in :

Then all in the place
He left a void space,

And so went to bed in a desperate case.

When behold the next morning a wonderful riddle !

He found it was strangely fill’d up in the middle.

Let censuring critics then think what they list on’t ;
Who would not write verses with such an assistant ?

Before the year 1704 a piece in Swift’s Works

entitled A Conference between Sir H. P ce’s

Chariot and Mrs. D. St d’s Chair must have

been written.(17) It has for its subject the woo-
ing of Miss Dorothy Stopford, afterwards men-
tioned in the Journal to Stella, as Countess Doll
of Meath by Sir Henry Piers, the third baronet
of thfe Tristernagh line. In 1703 he was a young
man of twenty-five, and the fair lady, who was a
member of the family from which the Earl of
Courtown descends, was evidently older, and
married in the next year a widower of sixty-six
in the person of the fourth Earl of Meath, whom
she replaced on his decease by Lieutenant-General
Richard , Gorges. The piece, which is in the
familiar style, but in heroic metre, has all Swift’s
gift of intensity, and from his other references to

54 DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

Countess Doll and the contents of the piece,
which has many indelicate allusions, it cannot
be doubted to be from his pen.

During a long visit paid by Swift to London in
the years 1703 and 1704 a fresh stimulus appears
to have been given to his literary ambition.
After that visit A Tale of a Tub was published, (18)
and a distinct advance is perceptible in his
versification. Whence the stimulus came is not
apparent. Possibly it was the result of the
intercourse which he had then with high whig
statesmen, or of his acquaintance with that great
patron of wits Anthony Henley .(19) To that
period Ambrose Philips’s story of Swift as the
mystery man of the coffee-house frequented by
Addison and his circle applies ; and although
Forster endeavours to antedate the incident,
there is no proof that Swift was then personally
known to Addison. (20)

While on that visit Swift composed the first
version of a piece entitled Vanbrugh’s House, which
in its second form was said by Bolingbroke to be
the best thing of the kind that he ewer read.(21)
This piece was occasioned by the erection^ of a
house of diminutive size on the site of the White-
hall palace by Sir John Vanbrugh, whose achieve-
ments as a playwright, as an architect and as an
officer of the College of Arms are told. The
seebnd version contains a reference to the form
of joking known as a ‘bite,’ which Swift first
alluded to, and described as ‘new-fashioned,’ in
December 1703.(22)

In the next year, 1705, Swift wrote a lampoon.

1694-1707

55

of a very unsavoury kind, upon Lord Cutts, who
came to Ireland in that year as commander of the
forces, and filled during the absence of the lord
lieutenant the office of a lord justice. Although
repulsive in its matter, Swift gave it a place in his
Miscellanies, (23) and certainly as a composition
its merit cannot be disputed. Besides The
Salamander, as that lampoon was called, he wrote
in 1705 A Parody on the Recorder of Blessington’s
Address to Queen Anne, (24) Blessington being one
of the almost invisible parliamentary boroughs
attached then in Ireland to the seats of prominent
political personages, and the recorder being a
curious barrister, of strong tory inclinations,
rejoicing in the name of Crowe.(25)

a

From a town that consists of a church and a steeple.
With three or four houses, and as many people.

There went an Address in great form and good order,
Composed, as ’tis said, by Will Crowe, their Recorder.
And thus it began to an excellent tune :

Forgive us, good Madam, that we did not as soon
As the rest of the cities and towns of this nation
Wish your ijiajesty joy on this glorious occasion.

Not 1 that we’re less hearty or loyal than others,

But having a great many sisters and brothers,

Our borough in riches and years far exceeding,

We let them speak first, to show our good breeding.

And as Mr. Christie’s volume shows, Swift wrote
then the piece mentioned in connexion with the
Elegy on the Pig. That piece originated in a con-
test for the office of physician to the army between
Sir Patrick Dun, the father of the Dublin medical

5G DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

school, who was successful, and Dr. Ralph Howard,
an ancestor of the Earls of Wicklow, the piece'
being originally entitled The Duel betwixt two
old Physicians :( 26 )

Yc high commissioners of death,

And fatal stoppers of our breath,

By Jove you make us wonder :

That you who ought like birds of feather,

Most lovingly to flock together.

Should now be riv’d asunder.

What devilish motives did you feel,

Or was the devil in the deal,

To cause this dismal fray :

For sure his kingdom can’t increase,

If you, his agents, be not at peace,

And both in concord slay.

Charon for joy did shout so clear,

That you from Arctic might him hear
To the Antarctic poles :

If one of you by sword had fell.

Few souls he’d ferried o’er to hell
For want of mortal bolus.

With the title Epigram on the late York-strcet
Duel, a few lines on the same subject arc preserved
in The Whimsical Medley, in which the preceding
piece also appears :

O valiant doctors ! will you not give o’er ?

Have you so many kill’d, you’ll kill no more ?

Yet (by long practice being cruel grown)

As other lives, will you destroy your own ?

A favour this is, for by doing this,

You down yourselves, lest you should murder us.

1694-1707

57

Although his biographers represent him as
visiting London in the summer of 1705, Swift
remained in Ireland from the summer of 1704
until the winter of 1707, when on arriving in
England he wrote that all things appeared new
to him “ after an absence of less than four
years. ”(27) It was during that period, in the year
1706, that a first version of Baucis and Philemon,
one of his best-known pieces, was composed. It
describes with a wealth of detail, afterwards
much abridged, the transformation of a farmer
into a clergyman, his wife into a parson’s dame,
and his house into a church, and concludes by
metamorphosing the clergyman and his dame
into yew trees. The first emotion of the reader
is wonder that any brain could conceive so minute
and perfect a picture of English country life, and
that wonder becomes tenfold greater when it is
realized that the piece was composed in another
country, in the streets of Dublin or the fields of
Laraeor.(28)

Meantime the wits in London were busy discus-
sing A Tale of a Tub, and publishers began to
attriDute pieces to its author. Thus there
appeared in the year in which the Tale was
issued a pamphlet with the title :

The Fairy Feast, Written by the Author of
A Tale of a Tub, and the Mully of Moun-
town.

London : Printed in the Year, 1704,

but The Fairy Feast, afterwards called Orpheus
and Eurydice, was the work of Dr. Wiliam King,

58 DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

the civilian and starving wit, who was also
responsible for Mully of Mountown. Two years
later there appeared :

The Tripe Club. A Satyr. Dedicated To
All Those who are True Friends to Her
Present Majesty, and Her Government:
To the Church of England, and the
Succession, as by Law Established : And
who Gratefully Acknowledge the Preserva-
tion of their Religion, Rights, and Liberties,
Due to the Late King William Of Ever-
Glorious and Immortal Memory. Difficile
est Satyram non Scribere. By the Author
of the Tale of a Tub. London : Printed
for Jacob Tonson, within Grays-Inn-Gate ;
And Sold by the Booksellers of London,
and Westminster. MDCCVL(29)

This piece reports a debate of a small coterie
of high-church tories, who met in a Dublin
tavern “ to censure heroes and the acts of kings,”
and tells in the conclusion of the arrival of
Religion, who bids the high-fliers cease from their
transports of rage and trust in Queen Anne, alid of
an unceremonious ending to the debate. Amongst
the members of the coterie mentioned are several
who became connected with Swift in his tory days,
the Reverend Francis Higgins, who became known
as the Irish Sacheverell, Archdeacon William
Percival, who sought at a later stage to rival
Swift in versification, Richard Nutley, who be-
came a judge, and Edward Worth, who was a
leading I|ublin physician.

1694-1707

59

Although the weight of evidence is against the
attribution of this piece to Swift, the question is
not easily determined. The piece relates to
Ireland, where Swift was residing when it was
written, and in part it displays his characteristic
of intensity. It was published by Tonson, who
knew Swift as editor of Temple’s letters, although
probably not as author of A Tale of a Tub. But,
on the other hand, devotion to the church is
made a cause of ridicule, which was far from
Swift’s custom. That the piece was incorrectly
attributed to him is further indicated by another
one entitled A Satyr on some Collegiate Wits.(30)
The latter was written at the same time as The
Tripe Club, and cannot be doubted to be by the
same hand. In it no trace of Swift is to be found.
But the strongest point of all is that the author
of The Tripe Club was well known in Dublin, and
figures in an answer to it under the sobriquet
of Somnio,(31) yet not one of Swift’s Dublin
contemporaries ever connected the piece with
him, and it remained for Barrett fifty years after
Swift’s de%th to father it upon him.

NOTES

1. Craik, op. cit., i. 72.

2. Scott, op. cit., i. 46.

3. Forster, op. cit., p. 64.

4. The piece is printed in The Miscellanies of both
1711 and 1727.

' 5. Letters, Poems and Tales : Amorous, Satyrical,
and Gallant. Which passed between Several Persons
of Distinction. Now first Publish’d from their respective

60 DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

Originals, found in the Cabinet of that Celebrated
Toast Mrs. Anne Long, since her Decease. London :
Printed for E. Curll in Fleetstreet 1718, p. 20 ; cf.
Swift’s Corr., v. 205, 229.

6. See the Life of a Chief Governor of Ireland in the
Reign of William III, Notes and Queries, 12 S., vii. 361.

7. An “ original holograph manuscript ” of The
Discovery was found in the collection of Swift’s friend,
Sir Andrew Fountaine, and sold by Sotheby, Wilkinson
& Hodge on December 15, 1906. The Discovery and
The Problem were included in Swift’s Works by Hawkcs-
worth in 1755.

8. History of English Literature, by Hippolyte A.
Taine, 1886, iii. 238.

9. It was printed in The Miscellanies of 1711, and
had been previously published with Baucis and Philemon
by Hills in 1709 and with A Meditation upon a Broom-
stick by Curll in 1710.

10. History of English Poetry, by William J. Court-
hope, 1895, v. 126.

11. See Swift’s Memoirs relating to that change which
happened in the Queen’s Ministry in the year 1710.
The Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions between
the Nobles and Commons in Athens and Rome with the
Consequences they had upon both those States is adver-
tised by John Nutt near Stationers’ Hall, in The Flying
Post for October 23, 1701.

12. This piece was discovered by Barrett in The
Whimsical Medley, and was included in Swift’s Works
by Sir Walter Scott. It is to be found in a broadside
form in the Bradshaw Collection in Cambridge University
Library.

13. Portland Manuscripts, Hist. MSS. Com., iv. 18.

14. Notes and Queries, 12 S., vii. 404,

15. Appendix I.

16. The Ballad on the G ame of Traffic was included in

1694-1707

61

Swift’s Works by Faulkner in 1746. The Ballad to
the Tune of the Cutpurse is to be found in The Whim-
sical Medley, and was printed in The Miscellanies of both
1711 and 1727.

17. It was found by Barrett in The Whimsical Medley
and included in Swift’s Works by Sir Walter Scott.

18. A Tale of a Tub was advertised in The Daily
Courant of May 10, 1704, by J. Nutt, near Stationers’
Hall, as published that day.

19. A copy of the Works of Virgil, an Elzevir edition,
is inscribed “Jonathan Swift Donum Ant. Henley,
July 12, 1701.” Courville’s Autograph Prices Current,
ii. 186.

20. Works of Swift, by Thomas Sheridan, 1784, i. 46 ;
cf. Forster, op. eit., p. 158.

21. The Journal to Stella 1710, Nov. 11.

22. Cf. Swift’s Corr., i. 40-1 ; infra, p. 82.

23. It appears in The Miscellanies of both 1711 and
1727.

24. It was found by Barrett in The Whimsical Medley
and included in Swift’s Works by Sir Walter Scott.

25. Some amusing letters from Crowe will be found
in the Ormonde Manuscripts, Hist. MSS. Com., viii.
passim.

26. The Elegy and the Duel were published in a
broadside form. A copy was sold by Sotheby, Wilkin-
son & Hodge on July 27, 1911.

27. Swift’s Corr., i. 62.

28. Infra, p. 68.

29. There are other editions : (a) The Swan Tripe-
Club In Dublin. A Satyr . . . Printed at Dublin,
and Sold by the Booksellers in London and Westminster
1706 ; ( b ) The Swan Tripe-Club : A Satyr, On the High
Flyers ; In the Year 1705 . . . London : Printed and
Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster,
1710.

62 DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE

30. It is preserved in The Whimsical Medley.

31. The New Idol. A Poem dedicated to all True
Subjects of Her Majesty’s Government, and Friends
of the Church as by Law Establish’d. And Inscrib’d
to the Unchristian Author of the Satyr call’d the Tripe
Club. Printed in the year 1706 and arc to be sold by
the Booksellers. Somnio is mentioned as a youth.

The author had intended to speak of the two ^Enigmas
or Riddles contributed to The Muses Mercury for April
(p. 96) and May (p. 117), 1707, beginning “ From India’s
burning Clime I’m brought ” and “ I’m wealthy and
poor.” The former was reprinted about 3725 with the

title A Riddle By Dr. S 1, to My Lady Carteret

(Brit. Mus. 839. m. 23 (135) ).

CHAPTER IV

ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE
Ann. Dom. 1707-1710. Aet. suae 39-42.

The period has now been reached when Swift’s
greatness in the world of letters was acknow-
ledged, and everything that came from his pen,
whether in prose or verse, was deemed of value.
It was at the commencement of this period that
in presenting Swift with a copy of his Remarks
on Italy, Addison averred him to be “ the most
agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the
greatest genius of his age.”(l) By Swift’s later
biographers his literary triumph is said to have
begun in the year 1705, but that conclusion is
based on the assumption that the Remarks on
Italy were given to Swift by Addison in the year
in which they were published, supported by
extracts from Swift’s account-book for 1708-9
which have been conveniently ante-dated for
the purpose three years.(2) As has been already
mentioned, Swift’s Correspondence shows that
he did not visit England between the years
1704 and 1707 ; and as will be seen by subsequent
references, it shows also that the recognition in
social and literary circles of his genius dated
from his residence in London between the years
1707 and 1709. That such is the case is in accord-

63

64 ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

ance with what was said by Sheridan. He held
that Swift’s fame began after his identification
as the author of the Tale of a Tub, but derision
is poured by subsequent biographers on the
statement, which he made on the authority of
Ambrose Philips, that before that time Swift
had been known to Addison and his circle only
as a silent frequenter of their coffee-house, who
had signalized himself on one occasion by bursting
out with a testimony of the wisdom of providence
in not committing the direction of the weather
to men.(3)

In the months which immediately preceded
his departure from Ireland in the autumn of
1707 Swift had gained friends in a position to
promote his acceptance in London as a notable
man. For four months in that year the eighth
Earl of Pembroke, who is no less remarkable for
his achievements in the paths of statesmanship
and art than for his high-birth and high-breeding,
had submitted to banishment to Ireland as lord
lieutenant, and had brought with him as a com-
panion the crafty Annius of The Dunciad, Sir
Andrew Fountaine, whom he rewarded by attach-
ing him to the Irish House of Lords as usher of
the black rod. With Pembroke, who was some
twenty years his senior, Swift became a great
favourite, owing to his proficiency in the practice
of making puns, an accomplishment that came
on Pembroke as a revelation, and in Fountaine,
who was ten years his junior. Swift found one of
the most devoted admirers of his transcendent
gifts. With them at the close of November

1107-1710

65

Swift crossed to England, and after a short visit
to his mother at Leicester he is found residing
with Fountaine in London, in Leicester Fields,
and attending on Pembroke. (4)

The first intimation of intercourse between Swift
and Addison is given by a letter from Addison to
Swift at the close of February 1708. The terms
of this letter convey that their acquaintance was
not of long standing, and that the link between
them was a young man of fashion, Philip Frowde,
who enjoys a reputation as a litterateur that his
performance hardly justifies. In this letter
Addison says that he is informed by Frowde that
Swift designs to pay him the honour of a visit
the next morning, and that he will take it as a
particular favour if Swift will instead give him
his company at dinner, when he may hope to
enjoy at more leisure Swift’s conversation, on
which he assures him that he sets a very great
value ; and he adds in a postscript that Steele
and Frowde will join them, as if they were better
known to Swift than he was.(5) Such a mode of
address little accords with the inscription in
Swift’s copy of Addison’s Remarks on Italy, and
demonstrates how untenable is the- theory that
the inscription had been penned before that time,
but it is possible that it was soon afterwards, for
acquaintance rapidly strengthened into friend-
ship, and within four months Addison, Steele
and Swift were regarded as a triumvirate.(6)
Notwithstanding the discovery of a portrait of
Fountaine at Holland House, (7) there has not
been found any indication that Fountaine was a
5

66 ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

friend of Addison, to whom, as to Swift, he was
junior, but at the same time there is every
probability that he was instrumental in procuring
the introduction of Swift to Addison, for which
purpose he may have enlisted the help of Frowde.
During the whole of the early part of Swift’s
friendship with Addison, Fountaine was in the
closest touch with Swift, who entrusted to him
his most jealously guarded secrets, and he was
evidently aware of all that passed between
Addison and Swift. It was in Fountaine’ s house
at Narford in Norfolk that the original versions
of Baucis and Philemon and Vanbrugh’s House,
which Swift altered at Addison’s bidding, were
found, and it may be that Fountaine, like dis-
tinguished critics of the present day, preferred
them to the versions which were given to the
world.

The influence which Addison exercised upon
Swift in metrical composition is clearly seen by a
comparison of the earlier and the later versions of
Baucis and Philemon and Vanbrugh’s House.
In both cases the changes were sweeping. With
regard to Baucis and Philemon, Swift hardly
exaggerated when he said that in a piece of a
hundred and seventy-seven lines Addison made
him “ blot out fourscore, add fourscore, and alter
fourscore,”(8) for it originally contained two
hundred and thirty lines and finally a hundred
and seventy-eight, and ninety-six were omitted,
forty-four added and twenty-two altered ; and
with regard to Vanbrugh’s House, a piece of
ninety-two lines became half as long again, and

1707-1710

67

was extended to a hundred and thirty-four
lines. Of the effect of the changes an exhaus-
tive analysis has been made by John Forster
and Sir Henry Craik. In the case of Baucis and
Philemon, Forster sums the effect up in the
distinction between correctness and enjoyment,
and regularity and abundance (9) ; and in the
case of Vanbrugh’s House Craik believes the effect
to have been a loss of the smooth flow of humour,
with a consequent diminution in the clearness
of purpose, and an increase of the unneces-
sary and obscure.(lO)

68

ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

BAUCIS AND PHILEMON
170 6 ( 11 )

In ancient times, as story tells,

The saints would often leave their cells.
And stroll about, but hide their quality,
To try good people’s hospitality.

It happen’d on a winter’s night,

As authors of the legend write,

Two brother hermits, saints by trade,

Taking their tour in masquerade,

Came to a village hard by Rixham,

Ragged and not a groat betwixt ’em.

It rain’d as hard as it could pour.

Yet they were forc’d to walk an hour
From house to house, wet to the skin,

Before one soul would let ’em in.

They call’d at every door : “ Good people.
My comrade’s blind, and I’m a creeple !

Here we lie starving in the street,

’Twould grieve a body’s heart to see’t,

No Christian would turn out a beast,

In such a dreadful night at least ;

Give us but straw and let us lie
In yonder barn to keep us dry.”

Thus in the strollers’ usual cant

They begg’d relief, which none would grant ;

No creature valued what they said.

One family was gone to bed :

The master bawled out half asleep,

“ You fellows what a noise you keep !

So many beggars pass this way,

We can’t be quiet night or day ;

1707-1710

69

BAUCIS AND PHILEMON

1708 (12)

In ancient times, as story tells,

The saints would often leave their cells,
And stroll about, but hide their quality.
To try good people’s hospitality.

It happen’d on a winter night,

As authors of the legend write.

Two brother hermits, saints by trade,
Taking their tour in masquerade.
Disguis’d in tatter’d habits, went
To a small village down in Kent ;
Where, in the strollers’ canting strain.
They begg’d from door to door in vain.
Tried every tone might pity win.

But not a soul would let them in.

70

ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

We cannot serve you every one ;

Pray take your answer and begone.”

One swore he’d send ’em to the stocks ;

A third could not forbear his mocks,

But bawl’d as loud as he could roar,

“ You’re on the wrong side of the door ! ”
One surly clown look’t out and said,

“ I’ll fling the ****-*** on your head :
You shan’t come here, nor get a sous !
You look like rogues would rob a house.
Can’t you go work, or serve the king ?
You blind and lame ! ’Tis no such thing.
That’s but a counterfeit sore leg !

For shame ! Two sturdy rascals beg !

If I come down, I’ll spoil your trick,

And cure you both with a good stick.”

Our wand’ring saints, in woeful state,
Treated at this ungodly rate,

Having thro’ all the village past.

To a small cottage came at last,

Where dwelt a good old honest ye’man.
Call’d thereabout good man Philemon,
Who kindly did the saints invite
In his poor house to pass the night ;
And then the hospitable sire
Bid Goody Baucis mend the fire ;
Whilst he from out the chimney took
A flitch of bacon off the hook.

And freely from the fattest side
Cut out large slices to be Med ;

Which tost up in a pan with batter,
And served up in an earthen platter,
Quoth Baucis, “ This is wholesome fare
Eat, honest friends, and never spare,

1707-1710

71

Our wandering saints, in woeful state.
Treated at this ungodly rate,

Having thro 5 all the village past,

To a small cottage came at last.

Where dwelt a good old honest ye’man.
Call’d in the neighbourhood Philemon ;
Who kindly did the saints invite
In his poor hut to pass the night ;

And then the hospitable sire
Bid Goody Baucis mend the fire ;

While he from out the chimney took
A flitch of bacon off the hook.

And freely from the fattest side
Cut out large slices to be fried ;

Then stepp’d aside to fetch them drink,
Fill’d a large jug up to the brink.

And saw it fairly twice go round ;

Yet, what was wonderful, they found,

ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

And if we find our victuals fad,

We can but make it out in ale.”

To a small kilderkin of beer.

Brew’d for the good time of the year,
Philemon, by his wife’s consent,

Stept with a jug, and made a vent,

And having fill’d it to the brink,

Invited both the saints to drink,

When they had took a second draught,
Behold a miracle was wrought ;

For, Baucis with amazement found.
Although the jug had twice gone round.
It still was full up to the top,

As they ne’er had drunk a drop,

You may be sure so strange a sight.

Put the old people in a fright :

Philemon whisper’d to his wife,

“ These men are saints, I’ll lay my life ! ”
The strangers overheard, and said,

“ You’re in the right — but be’nt afraid :
No hurt shall come to you or yours :

But for that pack of churlish boors.

Not fit to live on Christian ground.

They and their village shall be drown’d ;
Whilst you shall see your cottage risie.
And grow a church before your eyes.”

Scarce had they spoke when fair and soft.
The roof began to mount aloft ;

Aloft rose ev’ry beam and rafter ;

The heavy wall went clambering after.
The chimney widen’d and grew higher,
Became a steeple with a spire.

The kettle to the top was hoist,

And there stood fastened to a joist ;

1707-1710

73

’Twas stifi replenish’d to the top*

As if they ne’er had touch’d a drop.

The good old couple were amaz’d,

And often on each other gaz’d ;

For both were frighten’d to the heart.
And just began to cry, “ What ar’t ! ”
Then softly turn’d aside, to view
Whether the lights were burning blue.
The gentle pilgrims, soon aware on’t.

Told them their calling and their errand :
“ Good folks, you need not be afraid.

We are but saints,” the hermits said ;
“No hurt shall come to you or yours :
But for that pack of churlish boors.

Not fit to live on Christian ground.

They and their houses shall be drown’d ;
While you shall see your cottage rise.

And grow a church before your eyes.”

They scarce had spoke, when fair and soft.
The roof began to mount aloft ;

Aloft rose every beam and rafter,

The heavy wall climb’d slowly after.

The chimney widen’d, and grew higher.
Became a steeple with a spire.

The kettle to the top was hoist.

And there stood fasten’d to a joist,

74

ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

But with the upside down, to show
Its inclination for below :

In vain, for a superior force
Applied at bottom stops its course :

Doom’d ever in suspense to dwell,

’Tis now no kettle, but a bell.

The wooden jack, which had almost
Lost by disuse the art to roast,

A sudden alteration feels,

Increased by new intestine wheels :

But what adds to the wonder more.

The number made the motion slower.

The flier, altho’t had leaden feet,

Would turn so quick you scarce could see’t.
But now stopp’d by some hidden powers.
Moves round but twice in twice twelve hours,
While in the station of a jack,

’Twas never known to turn its back,

A friend in turns and windings tried,

Nor ever left the chimney’s side.

The chimney to a steeple grown,

The jack would not be left alone.

But, up against the steeple rear’d.

Became a clock, and still adher’d ;

And still its love to household cares»

By a shrill voice at noon declares,

Warning the cookmaid not to burn
That roast meat, which it cannot turn.

The groaning-chair began to crawl,

Like a huge insect, up the wall ;

There stuck and to a pulpit grew,

But kept its matter and its hue,

And mindful of its ancient state,

Still groans while tattling gossips prate.

The mortar only chang’d its name
In its old shape a font became.

1707-1710

75

But with the upside down, to show
Its inclination for below :

In vain, for a superior force
Applied at bottom stops its course :

Doom’d ever in suspense to dwell,

’Tis now no kettle, but a bell.

A wooden jack, which had almost
Lost by disuse the art to roast,

A sudden alteration feels,

Increas’d by new intestine wheels :

And, what exalts the wonder more.

The number made the motion slower.

The flier, tho 5 it had leaden feet.

Turn’d round so quick you scarce could see’t ;
But, slacken’d by some secret power.

Now hardly moves an inch an hour.

The jack and chimney, near allied,

Had never left each other’s side :

The chimney to a steeple grown.

The jack would not be left alone,

But, up against the steeple rear’d.

Became a clock, and still adher’d ;

And still its love to household cares
By a shrill voice at noon declares.

Warning the cookmaid not to bum
That roast meat, which it cannot turn.

The groaning-ehair began to crawl,

Like a huge snail, along the wall ;

There stuck aloft, in public view.

And with small change, a pulpit grew.

76

ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

The porringers, that in a row,

Hung high, and made a glittering show.
To a less noble substance chang’d
Were now but leathern buckets rang’d.
The ballads, pasted on the wall.

Of Chevy Chase and English Mall,

Fair Rosamond and Robin Hood,

The Little Children in the Wood,
Enlarged in picture, size, and letter.
And painted, look’d abundance better.
And now the heraldry describe ;

Of a churchwarden, or a tribe.

A bedstead of the antique mode,
Composed of timber many a load,

Such as our grandfathers did use,

Was metamorphos’d into pews ;

While yet their former virtue keep
By lodging folk disposed to sleep.

The cottage with such feats as these.
Grown to a church by just degrees,

The holy men desired their host
To ask for what he fancied most.
Philemon, having paused awhile,

Replied in complimental style,

“ Your goodness, more than my desert,
Makes you take all things in good part :
You’ve raised a church here in a minute.
And I would fain continue in it ;

I’m good for little at my days.

Make me the parson if you please.”

He spoke, and presently he feels
His grazier’s coat reach down his heels ;
The sleeves new border’d with a list,
Widen’d and gather’d at his wrist,

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The porringers, that in a row

Hung high, and made a glitt’ring show.

To a less noble substance chang’d.

Were now but leathern buckets rang’d.
The ballads, pasted on the wall,

Of Joan of France, and English Mall,
Fair Rosamond, and Robin Hood,

The Little Children in the Wood,

Now seem’d to look abundance better.
Improv’d in picture, size, and letter ;
And, high in order plac’d, describe
The heraldry of ev’ry tribe.

A bedstead of the antique mode,
Compact of timber many a load,

Such as our ancestors did use.

Was metamorphos’d into pews ;

Which still their ancient nature keep,
By lodging folks dispos’d to sleep.

The cottage, by such feats as these.
Grown to a church by just degrees.

The hermits then desir’d their host
To ask for what he fancied most.
Philemon, having paus’d awhile,
Rettirn’d them thanks in homely style ;
Then said, “ My house is grown so fine,
Methinks, I still would call it mine.

I’m old, and fain would live at ease ;
Make me the parson if you please.”

He spoke, and presently he feels
His grazier’s coat fall down his heels ;
He sees, yet hardly can believe,

About each arm a pudding-sleeve ;

His waistcoat to a cassock grew.

And both assum’d a sable hue ;

ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

But, being old, continued just
As threadbare, and as full of dust.

A shambling awkward gait he took,

With a demure dejected look,

Talk’d of his offerings, tithes, and dues,

Could smoke and drink and read the news,
Or sell a goose at the next town,

Decently hid beneath his gown.

Contriv’d to preach old sermons next,
Chang’d in the preface and the text,

At christ’nings well could act his part,

And had the service all by heart ;

Wish’d women might have children fast,

And thought whose sow had farrow’d last ;
Against dissenters would repine,

And stood up firm for “ right divine ” ;
Carried it to his equals higher,

But most obedient to the squire.

Found his head fill’d with many a system ;
But classic authors, he ne’er miss’d ’em.

Thus having furbish’d up a parson.

Dame Baucis next they play’d their farce on,
Instead of homespun coifs, were seen
Good pinners edg’d with colberteen j
Her petticpat, transform’d apace,

Became black satin flounced with lace.

“ Plain Goody,” would no longer down,

’Twas “ Madam ” in her grogram gown.
Philemon was in great surprise,

And hardly could believe his eyes,

Amaz’d to see her look so prim,

And she admir’d as much at him.

Thus happy in their change of life,
Were several years this man and wife :

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79

But, being old, continu’d just
As threadbare, and as full of dust.

His talk was now of tithes and dues :

He smok’d his pipe, and read the news ;
Knew how to preach old sermons next.
Vamp’d in the preface and the text ;

At christ’nings well could act his part,

And had the service all by heart ,*

Wish’d women might have children fast.
And thought whose sow had farrow’d last ;
Against dissenters would repine.

And stood up firm for “ right divine ” ;
Found his head fill’d with many a system ;
But classic authors, he ne’er miss’d ’em.

Thus having furbish’d up a parson,

Dame Baucis next they play’d their farce on.
Instead of homespun coifs, were seen
Good pinners edg’d with colberteen ;

Her petticoat, transform’d apace.

Became black satin flounc’d with lace.

“ Plain Goody ” would no longer down,
’Twas 44 Madam,” in her grogram gown.
Philemon was in great surprise,

And hardly could believe his eyes,

Amaz’d to see her look so prim.

And she admir’d as much at him.

Thus happy in their change of life,
Were several years this man and wife ;

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ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

When on a day, which prov’d their last.

Discoursing o’er old stories past,

They went by chance, amidst their talk.

To the churchyard to take a walk ;

When Baucis hastily cried out,

“ My dear I see your forehead sprout ! ”

“ Sprout,” quoth the man, “ what’s this you tell us
I hope you don’t believe me jealous !

But yet, methinks, I feel it true,

And really yours is budding too —

Nay, — now I cannot stir my foot ;

It feels as if ’twere taking root.”

Description would but tire my Muse,

In short, they both were turn’d to yews.

Old Goodman Dobson of the green
Remembers he the trees has seen ;

He’ll talk of them from noon till night,

And goes with folk to show the sight ;

On Sundays, after evening prayer.

He gathers all the parish there ;

Points out the place of either yew.

Here Baucis, there Philemon grew ;

Till once a parson of our town.

To mend his barn, cut Baucis down ;

At which, ’tis hard to be believ’d
How much the other tree was griev’d.

Grew scrubby, died a-top, was stunted,

So the next parson stubb’d and burnt it.

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When on a day which prov’d their last,

Discoursing o’er old stories past.

They went by chance, amid their talk.

To the churchyard to take a walk ;

When Baucis hastily cried out,

“ My dear, I see your forehead sprout ! 55

cc Sprout ! ” quoth the man ; “ what’s this you tell us ?

I hope you don’t believe me jealous !

But yet, methinks, I feel it true,

And really yours is budding too —

Nay, — now I cannot stir my foot ;

It feels as if ’twere taking root.”

Description would but tire my Muse,

In short, they both were turn’d to yews.

Old Goodman Dobson of the green
Remembers he the trees has seen ;

He’ll talk of them from noon till night,

And goes with folks to show the sight ;

On Sundays, after evening prayer,

He gathers all the parish there ;

Points out the place of either yew,

Here Baucis, there Philemon, grew ;

Till once a parson of our town,

To mend his barn, cut Baucis down ;

At which* ’tis hard to be believ’d
How much the other tree was griev’d.

Grew scrubby, died a-top, was stunted ;

So the next parson stubb’d and burnt it.

82

ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

VANBRUGH’S HOUSE
1703 (13)

In times of old, when Time was young,
And poets their own verses sung,

A verse would draw a stone or beam,
That now would overload a team ;
Lead them a dance of many a mile,
Then rear them to a goodly pile.

Each number had its different power :
Heroic strains could build a tower ;
Sonnets or elegies to Chloris,

Might raise a house about two stories ;
A lyric ode would slate ; a catch
Would tile ; an epigram would thatch.

Now poets feel this art is lost,

Both to their own and landlord’s cost :
Not one of all the tuneful throng
Can hire a lodging for a song.

For Jove consider’d well the case,

That poets were a numerous race ;

And if they all had power to build,

The earth would very soon be fill’d ;
Materials would be quickly spent,

And houses would not give a rent.

The God of Wealth was therefore made
Sole patron of the building trade ;
Leaving to Wits the spacious air,

With licence to build castles there
In right whereof their old pretence
To lodge in garrets comes from thence.
There is a worm by Phoebus bred,

By leaves of mulberry is fed,

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VANBRUGH’S HOUSE
1708 (14)

In times of old, when Time was young.
And poets their own verses sung,

A verse would draw a stone or beam.
That now would overload a team ;
Lead them a dance of many a mile,
Then rear them to a goodly pile.

Each number had its different power :
Heroic strains could build a tower ;
Sonnets, or elegies to Chloris,

Might raise a house about two stories ;
A lyric ode would slate ; a catch
Would tile ; an epigram would thatch.

But, to their own or landlord’s cost,
Now poets feel this art is lost.

Not one of all our timeful throng
Can raise a lodging for a song.

For Jove consider’d well the case.
Observ’d they grew a numerous race ;
And shpuld they build as fast as write,
’Twould ruin undertakers quite.

This evil therefore to prevent,

He wisely chang’d their element :

On earth the God of Wealth was made
Sole patron of the building trade ;
Leaving the Wits the spacious air.
With licence to build castles there :
And *tis conceiv’d, their old pretence
To lodge in garrets comes from thence.

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ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

Which unprovided where to dwell,
Conforms itself to weave a cell ;

Then curious hands this texture take,
And for themselves fine garments make.
Meantime a pair of awkward things
Grow to his back instead of wings ;

He flutters when he thinks he flies,

Then sheds about his spawn and dies,
Just such an insect of the age
Is he that scribbles for the stage ;

His birth he does from Phoebus raise,
And feeds upon imagin’d bays ;

Throws all his wit and hours away
In twisting up an ill spun play :

This gives him lodging and provides
A stock of tawdry shift besides.

With the unravell’d shreds of which
The under wits adorn their speech :

And now he spreads his little fans —

For all the Muse’s geese are swans —
And borne on Fancy’s pinions, thinks
He soars sublimest when he sinks :

But scatt’ring round his fly-blows, dies ;
Whence broods of insect-poets rise.

Premising thus, in modern way,
The greater part I have to say ;
Sing, Muse, the house of Poet Van,
In higher strain than we began.

Van, for ’tis fit the reader know it,
Is both a herald and a poet ;

No wonder then, if nicely skill’d
In each capacity to build:

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85

Premising thus, in modern way,
The better half we have to say ;
Sing, Muse, the house of Poet Van,
In higher strains than we began.

Van, for ’tis fit the reader know it,
Is both a herald and a poet ;

No wonder then, if nicely skill’d
In both capacities to build.

ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

As herald, he can in a day
Repair a house gone to decay ;

Or by achievements, arms, device,

Erect a new one in a trice ;

And poets, if they had their due,

By ancient right are builders too ;

This made him to Apollo pray
For leave to build — the poet’s way.

His prayer was granted, for the god
Consented with the usual nod.

After hard throes of many a day
Van was delivered of a play,

Which in due time brought forth a house
Just as the mountain did the mouse :

One story high, one postern door,

And one small chamber on a floor,

Born like a phoenix from the flame.

But neither bulk nor shape the same ;

As animals of largest size

Corrupt to maggots, worms and flies ;

A type of modern wit and style,

The rubbish of an ancient pile ;

So chemists boast they have a power,
From the dead ashes of a flower
Some faint resemblance to produce?

But not the virtue, taste nor juice.

So modern rhymers strive to blast
The poetry of ages past ;

Which, having wisely overthrown.

They from its ruins build their own.

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As herald, he can in a day
Repair a house gone to decay ;

Or by achievements, arms, device.

Erect a new one in a trice ;

And as a poet, he has skill
To build in speculation still.
st Great Jove ! 55 he cried, “ the art restore
To build by verse as heretofore.

And make my Muse the architect ;

What palaces shall we erect !

No longer shall forsaken Thames
Lament his old Whitehall in flames ;

A pile shall from its ashes rise.

Fit to invade or prop the skies . 59
Jove smil’d, and like a gentle god,
Consenting with the usual nod,

Told Van, he knew his talent best,

And left the choice to his own breast.

So Van resolv’d to write a farce ;

But, well perceiving wit was scarce.

With cunning that defect supplies.

Takes a French play as lawful prize.

Steals thence his plot and ev’ry joke.

Not once suspecting Jove would smoke ;
And, ]i\e a wag set down to write,

Would whisper to himself, “ a bite 95 ;

Then, from this motley mingled style,
Proceeded to erect his pile.

So men of old, to gain renown, did
Build Babel with their tongues confounded.
Jove saw the cheat, but thought it best
To turn the matter to a jest :

Down from Olympus 9 top he slides.
Laughing as if he’d burst his sides.

Ay, thought the god, are these your tricks ?
Why then old plays deserve old bricks ;

And since you’re sparing of your stuff.

Your building shall be small enough.

He spake, and grudging, lent his aid ;

Th’ experienc’d bricks, that knew their trade,
As being bricks at second-hand,

Now move, and now in order stand.

The building, as the poet writ,

Rose in proportion to his wit :

And first the prologue built a wall,

So wide as to encompass all.

The scene, a wood, produc’d no more
Than a few scrubby trees before.

The plot as yet lay deep ; and so
A cellar next was dug below :

But this a work so hard was found,

Two acts it cost him under ground.

Two other acts, we may presume.

Were spent in building each a room :

Thus far advanc’d, he made a shift
To raise a roof with act the fifth.

The epilogue behind did frame
A place not decent here to name.

Now poets from all quarters ran.

To see the house of brother Van :

Look’d high and low, walk’d often round ;

But no such house was to be found.

One asks the watermen hard by,

“ Where may the poet’s palace lie ? ”

Another of the Thames inquires.

If he has seen its gilded spires ?

At length they in the rubbish spy
A thing resembling a goose-pie :

Thither in haste the poets throng.

And gaze in silent wonder long.

Till one in raptures thus began
To praise the pile and builder Van :

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91

44 Thrice happy poet ! who mayst trail
Thy house about thee like a snail :

Or, harness’d to a nag, at ease
Take journeys in it like a chaise ;

Or in a boat whene’er thou wilt,

Canst make it serve thee for a tilt !

Capacious house ! ’tis own’d by all
Thou’rt well contriv’d, though thou art small ;
For every Wit in Britain’s isle
May lodge within thy spacious pile.

Like Bacchus thou, as poets feign,

Thy mother burnt, art born again,

Bom like a phoenix from the flame,

But neither bulk nor shape the same ;

As animals of largest size

Corrupt to maggots, worms, and flies ;

A type of modern wit and style,

The rubbish of an ancient pile :

So chemists boast they have a power.

From the dead ashes of a flower
Some faint resemblance to produce,

But not the virtue, taste, or juice.

So modern rhymers wisely blast
The poetry of ages past ;

Which, lifter they have overthrown.

They from its ruins build their own.”

92 ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

Baucis and Philemon is known to have been
published in 1709 in two forms. The title and
imprint of one were as follows :

Baucis and Philemon, Imitated from Ovid.

Printed An. Dom. MDCCIX. Price Two-

Pence.

and of the other :

Baucis and Philemon ; A Poem. On the ever
lamented Loss of the two Yew-Trees in
the Parish of Chilthorne near the County
Town of Somerset. Together with Mrs.
Harris’s Earnest Petition. By the Author
of the Tale of a Tub. As also An Ode upon
Solitude. By the Earl of Roscommon.

London : Printed and Sold by H. Hills in
Black-fryars near the Water-side. 1709.

A second edition of the latter was issued in the
following year, with a piece entitled An Admir-
able Recipe, which does not appear to be by
Swift.

Before coming to England, Swift had probably
written some lines entitled On the Unionr In
these lines, which were not published until after
his death, he gives expression to his antipathy
to the Scotch, comparing the double nation to
a rich coat with skirts of frieze. In the opening
lines there is a suggestion that Queen Anne’s
support of the measure was given to obtain com-
pensation for her loss of revenue by the grant
of the tenths and first-fruits to the church,
known as Queen Anne’s Bounty —

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93

The Queen has lately lost a part.

Of her “ entirely-English ” heart.

For want of which by way of botch,

She piec’d it up again with Seotch.(15)

Soon after Swift came to England in the
spring of 1708 a piece attributed to him in the
Harleian Miscellany, (16) must have appeared.
It was issued in pamphlet form with the following
title and imprint :

A Trip to Dunkirk: or, A Hue and Cry
After the Pretended Prince of Wales. Being
a Panegyrick on the Desert.

London: Printed, and Sold by the Book-
sellers of London and Westminster. 1708.

From its contents it is evident that it was
written in the early part of March, when the
extent of the preparations for the attempted
invasion by the Pretender was known, but when
the objective was still in doubt. As a metrical
composition the piece is negligible, and it might
be doubted to be by Swift, but for its inimitable
huifiour and*its attribution to him by an Harleian
authority. The piece,, which was written for
the populace and does not err on the side of refine-
ment, ends thus :

For our Jacks here at home, as brave fellows as may be
They prick up their ears at the news on’t already ;
And out of their zeal they expect him at least
To be here, French and all, when the wind’s next at east ;
But some are more cautious, and question it much.
And doubt th’ invasion’s design’d on the Dutch ;

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ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

For the noise of his landing they swear ’tis a bite all.
They’ll trust to’t no more — till they see him at White-Hall.
But this is but talk all, and so let it rest,

Some are still of opinion, ’twill all prove a jest ;

This hero at Dunkirk will make his campaign,

And so gallop back to St. Germains again.(17)

A few weeks later The Trip to Dunkirk was
succeeded by The Elegy on Partridge, part of
the tremendous Bickerstaffe hoax. In this piece
an analogy is drawn between Partridge’s original
trade as a cobbler and his later pursuit of astro-
logy, with some references to his venture as a
vendor of quack medicines. The piece appeared
as a broadside with the following heading and
imprint :

An Elegy on Mr. Patrige, the Almanack-
maker, who Died on the 29th of this
Instant March, 1708.

London : Printed in the Year 1708.

Round three sides of the broadside there was a
deep black border, and at the top a design in
white on a black ground showing a skeleton,
crowned and in royal robes, seated on a throne,
with these words, “ I overcome and conquer,”
issuing from its mouth, and having on each side
another skeleton flying with a barbed arrow,
surrounded by a medley of worms, bones and
hour-glasses.

Here, five foot deep, lies on his back
A cobbler, starmonger, and quack ;

Who to the stars, in pure good will,

Does to his best look upward still.

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95

Weep all you customers that use
His pills, his almanacs, or shoes :

And you that did your fortunes seek.

Step to this grave but once a- week ;

This earth, which bears his body’s print.

You’ll find has so much virtue in’t,

That I durst pawn my ears, ’twill tell,

Whate’er concerns you full as well,

In physic, stolen goods, or love,

As he himself could, when above.(18)

During the succeeding months Addison’s in-
fluence became very apparent, especially in the
lines To Mrs. Biddy Floyd. These lines, twelve
in number, are as polished as anything that ever
came from Swift’s pen, and received the hall-
mark of the Addisonian circle, one member of
which wrote a Latin version. In these lines,
which were written in the summer, Swift tells
us, in metaphorical language, how the inseparable
and lifelong companion of his friend Lady Betty
Berkeley, then the wife of Sir John Germaine,
was found in a distant country scene with moral
attributes and fair looks, and was brought to the
vicinity of the court, where every social quality,
without suspicion of affectation or vanity, was
added :

Jove mix’d up all, and the best clay employ’d,
Then call’d the happy composition Floyd.(19)

Later on Swift wrote also Apollo Outwitted,
lines addressed to the poetess beloved by Sir
Edmund Gosse, Anne Finch, Countess of Winchel-
sea. In this elegant compliment the lady is

96

ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

represented as having won the gift of song, but
owing to modesty she concealed it until Apollo
decreed that she was to be overborne by the
object of her detestation, a clergyman of whig
opinions :

And last, my vengeance to complete,

May’st thou descend to take renown,

Prevail’d on by the thing you hate,

A whig and one that wears a gown.(20)

A few months later, in April 1709, Swift
contributed to the newly established Taller , so
largely an offspring of his own fancy, A Descrip-
tion of the Morning.(21) In this piece Swift’s gift
of intensity is prominent, but the form is indica-
tive of the Addisonian influence. In its own
way it is as perfect as the lines to Mrs. Biddy
Floyd. As Isaac Bickerstaffe says in introducing
The Description, it is not merely a description
of the morning “ but of the morning in town,
nay of the morning at this end of the town where
my kinsman at present lodges,” and the detail
with which the doings of the servants and the
street-hawkers are told is so great as to be an
offence in the eyes of Taine, who considers it is
a degradation in the use of poetry.(22)

The slip-shod ’prentice from his master’s door
Had par’d the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor.
Now Moll had whirl’d her mop with dextrous airs.
Prepar’d to scrub the entry and the stairs.

The youth with broomy stumps began to trace
The kennel-edge, where wheels had worn the place.

98 ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

In addition Swift wrote probably early in 1709,
when there was much frost, Merlin’s Prophecy
for that year :

Seven and Ten addyd to nyne,

Of Fraunce hir woe thys is the sygne,

Tamys rivere twys y-frozen,

Walke sans wetyng Shoes ne hozen.

It foretold great achievements by Marlborough,
a second marriage on the part of Anne, and war in
Spain.

Finally, there are verses connected with May
Fair which Forster (25) attributed to Swift :

In pity to the emptying town,

Some god May Fair invented,

When nature would invite us down
To be by art prevented.

What a corrupted taste is ours
When milkmaids in mock state,

Instead of garlands made of flowers,

Adorn their pails with plate.

Many pieces written in these years have been
wrongly or doubtfully attributed to Swift. A
curious contemporary case is the publication in
1708 of Dr. William King’s Art of Cookery as
by the author of the Tale of a Tub. (26) But even
more remarkable is the inclusion in Swift’s Works
of the ballad called forth by the Victory of Oude-
narde entitled Jack Frenchman’s Lamentation.
As appears from the Diary of Mary Countess
Cowper, that ballad was by Congreve, and it has

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99

to some ears a musical ring unknown in any of
Swift’s acknowledged verse. (27) Another piece
included in Swift’s Works, The Reverse to the
verses on Mrs. Biddy Floyd, is also probably
wrongly inserted. This piece, which was found
in The Whimsical Medley by Barrett, (28) reads
like a poor parody of the lines on Mrs. Biddy
Floyd, and contains phrases that Swift was not
wont to use. Besides, there is Swift’s own word
of warning, if not of repudiation, in Apollo’s
Edict to the Poets —

With females’ compounds I am cloy’d.

Which only pleased in Biddy Floyd.

In addition to The Reverse, Barrett included (29)
The Garden Plot, which has no claim to be
placed amongst Swift’s verses. It is preserved
in the Lambeth Library in the broadside form
in which it was issued in 1709, and on the margin
of the broadside it is recorded in contemporary
handwriting that it is by Dr. William King.
Two further pieces, which Barrett suggested (30)
to be Swift’s work. The Story of Orpheus Bur-
lesqued, and Actaeon or The Original of Horn
Fair, were rejected by Sir Walter Scott, and seem
not unlike compositions of Prior.

NOTES

1. Forster, op. cit., p. 160.

2. Ibid., p. 159 ; cf. Account of Expenses 1708-9,
Forster Collection, No. 506, in the Victoria and
Albert Museum.

100

ADDISONIAN INFLUENCE

3. Life of Swift by Thomas Sheridan, 1784, p. 46.

4. Swift’s Corr., i. 60 et seq.

5. Ibid., p. 79.

6. Ibid., p. 100.

7. Joseph Addison and Sir Andrew Fountaine : or,
The Romance of a Portrait, 1858.

8. Observations upon Lord Orrery’s Remarks on
the Life and Writings of Swift by the Rev. Patrick
Delany, 1754, p. 19.

9. Forster, op. cit., p. 166.

10. Craik, op. cit., i. 173.

11. The holograph was sold in the Fountaine Collec-
tion by Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge on December 15,
1906.

12. This version appears in the Miscellanies of both
1711 and 1727. It was printed with A Meditation
upon a Broomstick by Curll in 1710.

13. The holograph was sold in the Fountaine Collec-
tion by Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge on December 15,
1906.

14. This version appears in the Miscellanies of both
1711 and 1727. There is a copy in The Whimsical
Medley.

15. This piece was included in Swift’s Works by

Faulkner in 1746 (viii. 314). ' r

16. 1744, i. 205.

17. This piece was included in Swift’s Works by Cogan
in 1752 and Nichols in 1776. Appendix II.

There is also a piece entitled The Devil to do about
Dunkirk, in Burlesque Verse, 1708 — British Museum
164. m. 44.

18. This piece appears in the Miscellanies of both 1711
and 1727. There is also a copy in The Whimsical
Medley.

19. This piece appears in the Miscellanies of both 1711
and 1727. It was printed in Poetical Miscellanies — the

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101

Sixth Part — by Tonson in 1709 and with A Meditation
upon a Broomstick by Curll in 1710. There is also a
copy in The Whimsical Medley.

20. This piece is mentioned in a list of his works
made by Swift about the close of 1708; cf. Swift’s
Corr., i. 185.

21. This piece and the preceding one appear in the
Miscellanies of both 1711 and 1727.

22. Op. cit., iii. 236.

23. This piece appears in the Miscellanies of both
1711 and 1727.

24. The holograph was sold in the Fountaine Collec-
tion by Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge on December 15,
1906. The piece appears in the Miscellanies of both
1711 and 1727. It was printed also with A Meditation
upon a Broomstick by Curll in 1710, and there is a copy
in The Whimsical Medley.

25. Op. cit., p. 228.

26. The Art of Cookery, a poem in imitation of Horace’s
Art of Poetry, by the Author of A Tale of a Tub. Printed
and are to be sold by the Booksellers of London and
Westminster, 1708.

27. Jack Frenchmans Lamentation. An Excellent
New Song, To the Tune of I’ll tell thee Dick, &c.
Printed, and. are to be sold by John Morphew, 1708.
See Notes and Queries, 12 S., viii. 301, and Review of
English Studies 1926, ii. 322, and 1927, iii. 73 and 212.

28. Op. cit., p. 95.

29. Op. cit., p. 103. The piece has relation to London,
and not, as Barrett supposed, to Dublin.

30. Op. cit., pp. 134, 137.

CHAPTER V

THE FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR BEGUN
Ann. Dom. 1710-1711. Aet. suae 42-44

The conclusion of Swift’s residence in London
during the administration of Robert Harley,
Earl of Oxford, which covered four years from
1710 to 1714, witnessed the birth of three of his
most famous pieces, namely, his Imitation of
Horace’s Epistle Quinque dies, in which he dis-
closes to Oxford that St. Patrick’s deanery is a
place of more dignity than profit, his Imitation of
Horace’s Satire Hoc erat, in which he relates the
harassments that marks of ministerial favour
bring on him from those seeking office or intelli-
gence, and the nine hundred lines in which he
unfolds the story of Cadenus and Vanessa. In
these, as well as in other pieces of that period, a
sign of a new influence is apparent. They repeat
Baucis and Philemon in metre and intensity,
but they surpass it in art and ease. These
qualities came to Swift, perhaps insensibly but
none the less surely, from Prior, the poet with
whom attachment to the tory party brought him
in contact. Of the power of Prior, to whom
Cowper, Thackeray, and Dobson unite in giving
pre-eminence in familiar verse, to impart such

1710-1711

103

qualities, there cannot be question. Of the
situation and disposition of Swift to receive them
there can be as little doubt. The pages of the
Journal to Stella evidence the close and constant
intercourse between Swift and Prior for two years,
and a letter broken off on hearing of Prior’s
death nine years later tells of the whole-hearted
and lasting devotion that this intercourse had
inspired in Swift. Separated as he was by
politics from Addison and his circle, Swift had
during those two years no friend but Prior to
provide the incitement to versification that was
then necessary in his case, and proof is not
wanting that they collaborated when a party
purpose was to be served by the use of verse.

So far as is known there had been no acquain-
tance between Swift and Prior until they met in
the autumn of 1710 at Harley’s table. They
met there as equals, and maintained that footing.
If Prior was the superior in verse. Swift was the
superior in prose. So far as age was concerned,
but a few years separated them, the advantage
in years being on Prior’s side, and though in
Swift’s eyes Prior was a man of mean birth,
the inferiority was compensated for by the high
diplomatic offices that he had held. In politics
they hadboth begun as adherents of whig ministers,
and ended as adherents of tory ones, and the fact
that Prior’s conversion had preceded Swift’s was
perhaps balanced by the discomfiture that Swift’s
writings had caused in the whig fold, while he
remained ostensibly within. Finally there was
the curious coincidence that both had been con-

104 THE FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR BEGUN

nected with Lord Berkeley, Prior as secretary
abroad. Swift as chaplain at home.

Of the progress of the friendship between
Swift and Prior, as already mentioned, the Journal
to Stella tells. To her Swift relates how a month
after his coming to London, on October 15, when
he dined with Harley, Prior was the only other
guest, how raillery ensued between them as to
the authorship of the verses on Sid Hamet’s Rod,
which had just been published, and how at nine
o’clock they came away together, and went to
the Smyrna Coffee-house in Pall Mall, where they
sat until eleven making acquaintance. In the
subsequent weeks the same sympathetic ear is
told how Prior had commended his verses on the
City Shower as beyond anything that ever was
written since the time of the Golden Shower of
Danae, hoiv in return he stuffed Prior with compli-
ments a few days later, and how their mutual
wit and poetry had subsequently, for an hour or
tw T o, provided them with conversation. But
after Prior had presented Swift with a handsome
copy of Plautus there was a truce to compliments,
and their fellowship advanced rapidly while they
walked in the Park for their health, or ate and
drank for their pleasure, until Swift began to
visit Prior for business, and they become so
inseparable that their enemies said that as
writers for the Ministry one could not be dis-
tinguished from the other.

Within six months of his arrival in London, in
February 1711, Swift’s Miscellanies was issued
with the following title and imprint :

1710-1711

105

Miscellanies in Prose and Verse.

London : Printed for John Morphew, near
Stationers Hall. MDCCXI,

the price being four shillings. The verse comprised
(i) Written in a Lady’s Ivory Table-Book ; (ii)
Mrs. Harris’s Petition ; (iii) the Ballad to the
Tune of the Cut-purse ; (iv) Vanbrugh’s House ;
(v) The Description of a Salamander ; (vi)
Baucis and Philemon ; (vii) To Mrs. Biddy Floyd ;
(viii) The History of Vanbrugh’s House ; (ix)
An Elegy on Partridge ; (x) Apollo Outwitted ;
(xi) A Description of a Morning ; (xii) A
Description of a City Shower ; and (xiii) Sid
Hamet’s Rod.(l) This volume, which was
originally designed to have been prefaced by an
introduction from Steele, (2) had been in Swift’s
thoughts for two years, and in a list of proposed
contents made about the close of 1708 there
appear all the verses eventually included, except-
ing the Ballad and the pieces which had not then
been written, namely, The Descriptions of the
Morning and, the City Shower and Sid Hamet’s
Rod.(3) Although John Morphew’s name appeared
in the imprint as publisher, as it did on Isaac
Bickerstaffe’s Predictions and many of Swift’s
tracts in support of Oxford’s ministry, the real
artificer was another publisher, Ben Tooke, who
was Swift’s sworn friend, supplying him with
“ right French wine ” and a host of dinners, and
transmitting money with equal zest to Stella
and Vanessa. In the summer of 1709 there are
references to the volume in letters from Swift to

106 THE FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR BEGUN

Tooke, and soon after his arrival in London in
1710, on October 24, Swift writes to Stella :

“ Tooke is going on with my Miscellany.” With
such an explicit acknowledgement of his privity,
it is amusing to read on February 28 following,
when the volume was issued, “ Some bookseller
has raked up everything I writ, and published it
t’other day in one volume ; but I know nothing
of it. ’Twas without my knowledge or consent.

. . . Tooke pretends he knows nothing of it,
but I doubt he is at the bottom.”

In the spring of 1710, the notorious publisher
Curll, then beginning his unsavoury career, had
issued a volume containing Swift’s Meditation
upon a Broom-stick, Baucis and Philemon, Mrs.
Harris’s Petition, To Mrs. Biddy Floyd, and The
History of Vanbrugh’s House, with the following
title and imprint :

A Meditation upon a Broom-Stick, and Some-
what Beside; of The Same Author’s. —
Utile dulci.

London : Printed for E. Curll, at the Dial
and Bible against St. Dunstan’s Church
in Fleetstreet ; and sold by J. Harding,
at the Post-Office in St. Martins-Lane.
1710. (Price 6d.) (4)

To Swift’s indignation, three months after the
publication of the authentic, albeit repudiated,
Miscellanies, “ that villain Curll ” reprinted the
pieces that he had issued in A Meditation upon
a Broom-stick, and Somewhat Beside with the
addition of A Complete Key to the Tale of a Tub,

1710-1711

107

and introduced the volume with the following
title-page :

Miscellanies by Dr. Jonathan Swift. Viz.

I. A Meditation upon a Broom-Stick
according to the Style and Manner of the
Honourable Robert Boyle’s Meditations.

II. Baucis and Philemon, Imitated from
the VIII. Book of Ovid. III. To their
Excellencies the Lords Justices of Ireland,

The Humble Petition of Frances

Harris, Who must Starve, and Die a Maid
if it miscarries. IV. To Mrs. Biddy Floyd.
V. The History of Vanbrugh’s House. To
all which is prefix’d, A Complete Key to
the Tale of a Tub.

London, Printed for E. Curll, at the Dial
and Bible against St. Dunstan’s Church
in Fleetstreet, 1711. (Price Is.)

The publication of his “ name at large ” was
in Swift’s eyes an offence, but in those of Harley
and “ the rest ” a good cause for mirth.(5)

During the, first half of the year 1710, when
Swiff was residing in Ireland, the only piece that
can be attributed to him with certainty is one
On the Little House by the Churchyard of
Castleknoek, which has been compared by Forster
to a page out of a poetical Gulliver, (6) and which
has for its subject a minute house that served
Swift’s friend Archdeacon Walls as a vestry
when officiating in Castleknoek Church, the
parish church of the Phoenix Park of which he
was incumbent :

108 THE FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR BEGUN

The vicar once a week creeps in.

Sits with his knees up to his chin ;

Here cons his notes and takes a whet.

Till the small ragged flock is met.

A traveller, who by did pass,

Observ’d the roof behind the grass,

On tiptoe stood, and rear’d his snout,

And saw the parson creeping out.

Was much surprised to see a crow
Venture to build his nest so low. (7)

But, whatever he may have been in Ireland,
Swift tells Stella, a month after his arrival in
London, on October 12, that he had not been idle
since he came thither and had printed three pieces.
As previous and subsequent references in the
Journal to Stella show, these pieces were an
article for The Toiler, which was written between
September 18 and 23, and appeared in the number
for the 28th, the lines on Sid Hamet’s Rod,
which were begun soon afterwards and given to
the printer on October 4, and a ballad on the
future Earl of Stanhope, then a candidate for the
representation of Westminster, whjch was begun
on October 5 and given to the printer on the 7th.
These were followed by the Description of the
City Shower for The Taller , which was written
between October 8 and 13 and appeared in the
number for the 17th.

Adapting the name of the imaginary chronicler
of Don Quixote to his purpose, Swift tells in The
Virtues of Sid Hamet the Magician’s Rod, the
wonderful things that the lord -treasurer’s rod did
in the hands of Sidney, Earl of Godolphin. By

1710-im

109

its aid he divined that gold-mines were to be found
in Scotland ; with it he charmed the parliament to
do his will ; by using it to fish he caught members
for his party with the lure of office but without
sacrificing the bait ; and with it he made a circle
not to keep spirits out, but to draw them in.

Achilles 5 sceptre was of wood.

Like Sid’s, but nothing near so good ;

Though down from ancestors divine
Transmitted to the hero’s line ;

Thence, through a long descent of kings,

Came an heirloom, as Homer sings.

Though this description looks so big.

That sceptre was a sapless twig,

Which, from the fatal day when first
It left the forest where ’twas nurs’d.

As Homer tells us o’er and o’er,

Nor leaf, nor fruit, nor blossom bore.

Sid’s sceptre, full of juice, did shoot
In golden boughs, and golden fruit ;

And he, the dragon never sleeping,

Guarded each fair Hesperian pippin.

No hobby horse, with gorgeous top.

The dearest in Charles Mather’s shop.

Or glittering tinsel of May-fair,

Could with this rod of Sid compare.

Sidney had been mad enough to break his rod,
but he ought to have returned it to the queen or
used it as a switch at Newmarket. The lines were
issued as a broadside with the heading and imprint:

The Virtues of Sid Hamet the Magician’s Rod.

London, Printed: for John Morphew, near
Stationers-Hall. MDCCX.

110 THE FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR BEGUN

and they caught on. A few days after they
were published Swift told Stella they were
cried up to the skies and ran prodigiously. Of
them Swift was inordinately proud, but Sir
Henry Craik does not consider that they add to
Swift’s fame. (8)

The ballad on the future Earl of Stanhope, who
was then serving as a general in Spain, where
six months later he sustained the defeat of
JBrighuega, was intended to ridicule one entitled
The Glorious Warrior or A Ballad in praise of
General Stanhope, Dedicated to all who have
votes for Parliament Men in the City of West-
minster, and it was issued as a broadside with
the following heading :

An Excellent New Ballad being the Second
Part of the Glorious Warrior.

The idea of writing it came probably into Swift’s
mind on October 5, when, as he tells Stella, while
in a coach, he and a friend were surrounded by
supporters of Stanhope and the other whig candi-
date, Sir Henry Dutton Colt, and were “ always
on their side ” for fear that dead cats might be
thrown and the coach windows smashed. Two
days later, with the ballad in his hand, Swift
wended his way to Tooke’s house in the city,
and soon he was able to write to Stella that it
was printed and that, although it had cost him
but half an hour, and was good for nothing, it
was in great demand. The ballad, which is
somewhat broad, professes to be spoken by the

1710-1711

111

proxy of Stanhope, who was then in Spain, and
begins :

Ye citizens of Westminster,

Come quickly forth, I pray ;

All who pay scot and lot draw near
And hark to what I say ;

My horse and I in trappings bright,

To represent my cousin,

And by my side a courteous knight
Appears, not to be chosen ;

To your kind care then I commend
The worthy matchless pair.

Sir Harry Dutton Colt, my friend.

And Stanhope his compeer.(9)

Later critics join Swift’s contemporaries in
applauding the Description of a City Shower
which he wrote then for The Taller. It opens
by detailing homely prognostications of rain ;
then describes, as the rain comes first in drops
and afterwards in sheets, its victims — the needy
poet, the daggled females, the spruce templar,
the tucked-up sempstress, the triumphant tories,
the despondent whigs, and the impatient beau ;
and concludes with a picture of the gutters, when,
as Taine says,(10) the long lines of the piece
whirl filth in their eddies :

Filths of all hues and odours seem to tell

What street they sail’d from, by their sight and smell.

They, as each torrent drives with rapid force,

From Smithfield or St. Pulchre’s shape their course.

112 THE FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR BEGUN

And in huge confluence join’d at Snowhill ridge,

Fall from the conduit prone to Holborn bridge.
Sweepings from butchers’ stalls, dung, guts, and blood.
Drown’d puppies, stinking sprats, all drench’d in mud.
Dead cats, and turnip-tops come tumbling down the flood.

At the time Swift told Stella that The Shower
was written merely to help The Tatler, which
had been “ very low of late,” but in a letter
written many years later he disclosed an ulterior
motive, namely, to make the use of the triplet
and alexandrine ridiculous,(ll) which the lines
just quoted were eminently calculated to do.

After the publication of The Shower, Swift
was for many months engrossed by The Examiner,
but he probably did not entirely neglect metrical
compositions in enforcing his views. In Mr.
Christie’s volume there are preserved twelve
lines of feigned thanksgiving for the illusory
benefits conferred on the country by the whigs
which must have been written by him about then :

In sounds of joy your tuneful voices raise,

And teach the people whom to thank and praise ;

Thank humble Sarah’s providential reign
For peace and plenty, both of coin and grain ;

Thank too Vulpone for your unbought union.

Thank bishops for occasional communion ;

Thank banks and bankers for your thriving trade ;

Once more thank Yulpo that your debts are paid.

Thank Marlborough’s zeal that scorn’d the proffered
treaty,

And thank Eugene the Frenchman did not beat ye ;
Thanks to yourselves if ye are tax’d and sham’d
And sing Te Deum when the three are d d.

1710-1711

113

Direct attacks on the Duchess of Marlborough
in verse were also at. that time inspired, if not
written, by him. Two pieces of the kind are
found in The Whimsical Medley. The first is a
satire of eight lines :

No wonder storms more dreadful are by far.

Than all the losses of a twelve years’ war ;

No wonder prelates do the church betray.

Old statesmen vote and act a different way ;

No wonder magic arts surround the throne,

Old Mother Jennings in her grace is known ;

Old England’s genius, rouse, her charms dispel,
Burn but the witch and all things will do well.

The second is headed On Humphrey Duke of
Gloucester’s Tomb, and represents the Duchess
visiting Duke Humphrey’s tomb in St. Albans
Abbey and telling what a different course hers
had been to his :

Thus I the height of glory will attain,

And Anne shall wear the crown, but I will reign ;
Churchill shall rise on easy Stuart’s fall,

And Blenheim’s towers shall triumph o’er Whitehall.

Another attack on the Duchess is found in broad-
side form. It purports to show that marriage is
the greatest plague in England because it cannot
be remedied as other plagues, of which ridiculous
examples are given, can be ; but it is -evidently
directed at the Duchess from the heading :

There’s but one plague in England D M .

The references in The Examiner to the proceed-
ings in Convocation were also seconded by a
8

114 THE FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR BEGUN

metrical piece entitled. The Trumpeter, A Fable
humbly inscribed to the Lower House of Convoca-
tion, which seems to be aimed at Archbishop
Tenison. This piece is preserved in The Whimsical
Medley : it is in octosyllabic couplets, and from
some of the lines it would seem to have been at
least in part written by Swift :

Numbers, quoth he, shan’t make me yield,

The glory I have won in held ;

See here my trumpet and my coat,

These things were always sacred thought ;

In martial law, we trumpets stand
Ambassadors at second hand ;

Ambassadors you know are things,

Sacred as are their very kings.

Whence to an academic ear,

From logic rules I prove it clear,

That if by sacrilegious force
You set on me or whip my horse,

You in our persons, think upon’t,

Both kings and trumpeters affront.

That Swift had not forgotten the power of
verse at the beginning of the year 17JLI is shoym
by the appeal that he scribbled to the physicians
who were attending Harley when his life was in
danger from the wound inflicted by Guiscard :

On Britain Europe’s safety lies,

Britain is lost if Harley dies,

Harley depends upon your skill,

Think what you save or what you kill ;(12)

and towards the close of the year several metrical
pieces came from his pen. At that time he was

1710-1711

115

given opportunity for an attack on the whigs in
Dublin, an opportunity which he was not slow
in taking, by proceedings instituted there against
the Irish Sacheverell, the Reverend Francis
Higgins, who has been already mentioned as a
member of the Tripe-Club. The attack was made
in a ballad following the form of Jack French-
man's Lamentation , which had become known
by its first line. Ye Commons and Peers, but it
failed to catch the rhythm which characterized
Congreve’s effort. In the Journal to Stella the
history of the writing of the ballad is told : on
November 9 Swift says that he has just had the
pleasure of paying four shillings for “ printed stuff
and two long letters all about Higgins,” and that
it is wonderful the packets reached him as they
were addressed merely Dr. Swift, “ without nam-
ing London or anything else ” ; then on Novem-
ber 24 Swift says that he is going to finish his
letter to Lord Oxford “ about reforming our
language,” but that he must first put an end to
a ballad ; and finally he refers on November 29
to Lord Santry 3 the chief of Higgins’s antagonists,
and says that he has had enough of the affair. The
ballad, which Swift copied into the volume now in
the possession of Mr. Christie, came out in three
editions. The first edition, which omits several of
the stanzas, appears to have been one headed :

The New Kilmainham Ballad. To the Tune
of Ye Commons and Peers.

The second edition appears to have been one
with the following heading and imprint :

116 THE FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR BEGUN

An Excellent New Ballad, or The Whigs’
Lamentation, occasion’d by a Sore of
their own Scratching. To the tune of Ye
Commons and Peers.

Dublin : Reprinted in the year 1711.

The third, which did not appear until the summer
of 1712, was published in London, and was pro-
bably issued at the instance of Higgins, who was
then there. It was entitled :

An Irish Ballad, upon the Rev a . Mr. Francis
Higgins his Tryal ; Before the Lord Lieu-
tenant and Council, in Dublin. To the
tune of Ye Commons and Peers.

The ballad has much local colour and inimitable
touches :

And as we do hear,

They summon’d to swear
Some persons in office and trust ;

I shall mention but one,

And that’s good as ten,

The maker of pies and pie-crust.

This officer saith,

She lives in Tredath,

An evidence chief in the ease ;

But she wou’d not be seen,

For fear that the Queen
Shou’d turn her quite out of her place.(13)

The month of December, when the proposals
for peace were brought before parliament, was
big with the fate of the ministry. At all times
the position of the government in the House of

1710-mi

117

Lords had been precarious, and before parlia-
ment met on the 7th it was known that the
official opposition had been reinforced by the
secession from the tory ranks of Daniel Finch,
Earl of Nottingham. On the eve of the meeting
of parliament there appeared a famous Song, “ two
degrees above Grub-street,” in which Swift put
into the mouth of Dismal, as Nottingham was
called “ from his looks,” a speech that could not
but make him ridiculous in the eyes of the
world :

Now my new benefactors have brought me about,

And I’ll vote against peace, with Spain, or without :
Though the court gives my nephews, and brothers, and

cousins,

And all my whole family, places by dozens ;

Yet, since I know where a full purse may be found.

And hardly pay eighteen-pence tax in the pound :

Since the tories have thus disappointed my hopes.

And will neither regard my figures nor tropes,

I’ll speech against peace while Dismal’s my name,

And be a true whig, while I’m Not-in-game.

Oh the day before Oxford had dropped a hint
that he wished a ballad could be made on Dismal,
and, nothing loath. Swift wrote the Song next
morning, and had it printed by the evening,
when the printer brought down to a dinner of the
Brothers’ Club copies for the members, who
laughed a dozen times at Swift’s wit.(14) The
only broadside known, which is headed :

An Excellent New Song, Being the Intended
Speech of a famous Orator against Peace,

118 THE FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR BEGUN

bears no printer’s name. But it appears from the
Journals of the House of Lords, where Dismal
was “ such an owl ” as to complain of it, (15)
that some version of the speech was printed by
a sham name as follows :

The Earl of Nottingham’s Speech to the
Honourable House of Lords.

London : Printed by J. Tomson, near Covent-
Garden, 1711.

By the oath of one Sarah Vickers, it was found
that the name of Tomson or Tonson, the great
whig printer, had been substituted for that of
Andrew Hinde living in Peterborough Court near
Fleet Street, and Hinde was arrested and kept in
the custody of Black Rod for nearly a month,
when the House, moved by his repentance and
great poverty, allowed him to be discharged after
he had received on his knees a reprimand from
Swift’s friend, Lord Keeper Harcourt.(16)

So far as the moment was concerned, Swift’s
derision had no effect, and on a divisiop the
ministry found themselves in a minority in the
House of Lords. In common with the rest of
the ministers’ entourage, Swift gave up all for
lost, and believed that the queen, influenced by
the Duchess of Somerset, had turned against
Oxford. To take vengeance on the queen was
impossible, but not on her mistress of the robes,
and Swift had sufficient spirit left to pour out the
most deadly invective that he ever penned upon
her. Her history afforded good material, and in

1710-1711

119

The Windsor Prophecy the most effective use
was made of it :

And dear Englond, if ought I understand.

Beware of Carrots from Northumberlond.

Carrots sown Thyn a deep root may get.

If so be they are in Sommer set ;

Their Conyngs mark thou, for I have been told,

They Assassine when young, and Poison when old.

Two days before Christmas, as Swift wrote to
Stella, the Prophecy, which he tells her that he
designed to print, was written with some other
verses, and on Christmas Eve the Prophecy,
which he liked mightily, was in type and ready
to be published after Christmas Day. But at
noon on Boxing Day Mrs. Masham intervened,
and a hurried message was sent to the printer to
stop the sale.(17) Meantime many copies had been
given about, though not sold, and the printer
brought up “ dozens a piece ” for the Brothers
who were dining together again that evening.
The broadside is headed The W — ds-r Prophecy,
and bears no imprint. People were mad for it,
and judging by the number that have survived,
many copies must have been given away.(18)
The verses which Swift wrote at the same, time
as the Prophecy would seem to have been some
on the practice of Occasional Conformity, an act
for the abolition of which received the royal
assent on December 22. These verses, which
were published as a broadside, are headed Scotch-
Cloath, or Occasional-Conformity, and end :

120 THE FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR BEGUN

Thus occasionally for God they are,

And occasionally for devil ;

Occasionally for God again,

Occasionally for evil.

Occasionally for Heaven bound.

Occasionally for hell, Sir,

But surely ’twill be sad to have
Occasion there to dwell, Sir.(J9)

During the year 1711 seven other metrical
pieces have been attributed to Swift. The Town
Eclogue, which appeared in The Toiler for March
13, 1711, is one. The Toiler was then being
edited by Swift’s friend William Harrison, whom
Swift is known to have assisted, and the letter
in which the Eclogue was said to have been en-
closed was subscribed with the initials L. B.,
W. H., J. S., S. T.(20)

Another of the pieces is a parody of a speech
delivered by the whig recorder of Dublin to the
Duke of Ormonde on his arrival as lord-lieutenant.
It was issued as a broadside thus :

The R r’s S ch Explain’d.

The Speech.

Dublin : Printed by Edward Wafers in
Essex-street, at the Corner of Sycamore-
Alley; and publish’d by Edward Lloyd
at the Publishing- Office in Essex-street,
where Gentlemen may be furnish’d with
the best and newest Pamphlets for the
Interest of Church and State.(21)

1710-1711

121

In another edition the speech which is parodied
is printed on the verso, along with a former speech
of the recorder, thus :

Dublin April 25, 1709.

Recorder’s Speech to Lord Wharton

Dublin July 4, 1711.

Recorder’s Speech to Duke of Ormonde.

A third piece, which was issued as a pamphlet,
was a parody of a charge of an English judge,
Baron Lovel. The pamphlet, in which passages
from the charge and passages from the parody
were printed alternately, had this title-page :

Mr. Baron L ’s Charge to the Grand

Jury for the County of Devon, The
5th of April, 1710. At the Castle of Exon.
The Famous Speech-Maker of England : Or,

Baron (alias Barren) L ’s Charge, At

the' Assizes at Exon, April 5th, 1710. —
Bisum teneatis ?■ — London : Printed and
Sold by the Booksellers of London and
Westminster, 1710. Price 2d. (22)

A fourth piece, which has relation to noncon-
formity, was entitled The Tale of a Nettle. It
was issued as a broadside, in 1710,from Cambridge,
and seems likely to have been the work of a
..Cambridge man, but it may have been issued for
Swift by a friend who had connexion with the
town. (23) A fifth piece was a Ballad on the
modern whigs, which is similar in execution to Jack
Frenchman’s Lamentation and was probably by

122 THE FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR BEGUN

Congreve.(24) The remaining pieces are two
small ones entitled The Church’s Danger and A
Poem on High Church, which were found by-
Barrett in The Whimsical Medley.

NOTES

1. In The Post Boy of February 27, 1710/1, The
Miscellanies are announced as published on that day.

2. Swift’s Corr., i. 185.

3. Forster, op. eit., pp. 258-9 n.

4. In The Post Boy of April 6, 1710, A Meditation
upon a Broomstick and Somewhat Beside is announced
as published on that day.

5. Journal to Stella, 1711, May 14.

6. Op. cit., p. 188.

7. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1746.

8. Op. cit., i. 259.

9. There is a copy of the ballad in The Whimsical
Medley.

10. Op. cit., iii. 237.

11. Swift’s Corr., v. 162.

12. Journal to Stella, 1710-11, Feb. 19.

13. See Appendix III. There is also a ballad on the
subject entitled Doctor Higgins’s Deliverance, or The
Rose T — n Cabal Defeated : it was possibly the work
of one of Swift’s underspur-leathers.

14. Journal to Stella, 1711, December 5, 6.

15. Ibid., 1711, December 18.

16. Journals of the House of Lords, England, 1711,
December 15, 22, and 1711-12, January, 18, 19. The
piece was included in Swift’s Works by Nichols in 1779.
There is a copy in The Whimsical Medley.

17. Journal to Stella, 1711, December 23, 24, 26.

1710-1711

123

18. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by-
Faulkner in 1762.

19. Appendix IV.

20. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Hawkesworth in 1775. Could L.B. denote bachelor of
laws and S.T. professor of sacred theology ?

21. This parody was discovered in The Whimsical
Medley by Barrett, and included in Swift’s Works by
Sir Walter Scott.

22. This parody was included in Swift’s Works by
Nichols in 1776.

23. Mrs. Davys. See Swift’s Corr., iv. 361. In
connexion with the piece there were published An
Explanation of the Tale of a Nettle, and The London
Tale, by the Author of the Tale of a Nettle.

24. The fourth and fifth pieces were included in
Swift’s Works by Sir Walter Scott.

CHAPTER VI

THE FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR CONTINUED
Ann. Dom. 1712-1714. Aet. suae 44-40

With the new year, when a fresh lease of life was
given to Oxford’s ministry by the creation of
twelve peers and the dismissal of Marlborough,
the bond between Swift and Prior reached its
utmost strength. In The Fable of the Widow
and her Cat, which appeared then, and which
represented the widowed queen accusing the
felinely depicted Marlborough of making her
cream his perquisite and stealing to mend his
wages, the hand of Prior is seen in the verse, the
mind of Swift in the matter.(l) By their contem-
porary, Abel Boyer,(2) the verses were attributed
to Swift alone, but by the author of the notice
of Prior in the Biographia Britanmca, published
not long after Swift’s death, they are said with
more perspicacity to have been written by Prior
in conjunction with Swift. That the Fable was
in Swift’s mind at that time is shown by his
making use of the phrase “ as much as a cat ”
in writing on February 2 to Stella, and that
Prior regarded Swift as the originator of the piece
is indicated by his inscribing to him his verses,
When the Cat's away, the Mice may play, (3) in
which the recall of Marlborough is contemplated.

124

1712-1714

125

The Fable was announced on January 19, in
The Post Boy, as published by John Morphew at
a price of one penny, and besides that edition a
second was issued by Philpot near Charing Cross.
As Abel Boyer’s reference to it shows, the Fable
attracted much attention, and at least two replies
were printed, The Fable of the Shepherd and Ms
Dog and The Fable of the Housewife and her Cock.

The exhilaration of the ministerial circle at
the defeat of the machinations of the whigs
obtained expression in a ballad entitled An Excel-
lent New Song call’d The Trusty and True
Englishman. With regard to its composition.
Swift writes to Stella on January 4, “ I was in the
city to-day, and dined with my printer, and gave
him a ballad by several hands ; 1 know not whom ;
I believe Lord Treasurer had a finger in it ; I
added three stanzas ; I suppose Dr. Arbuthnot
had the greatest share.” The concluding three
stanzas, which are possibly those that Swift
wrote, are :

If little Eugene

* , Come here to get Spain,

We’ll send him, as wise as he comes, back again ;(4)
Tho’ a parcel of dund’rheads
Should meet him by hundreds
Not like Englishmen trusty and true,

But more like designers and court underminers.
Black Dismal and Coventry blue.

What a shame to the gown
To see prelates bow down
To those who would tread both on mitre and crown ;

126 FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR CONTINUED

Eleven out of fourteen i

Seduc’d by whigs’ courting,

Are they Englishmen trusty and true ?

Or more like designers, etc.

The twelve peers of France
Are fam’d in romance,

Who their country’s honour so high did advance ;
But our British twelve peers,

Are worth fifty of theirs,

,For they are Englishmen trusty and true —

In spite of designers, ete.(5)

About the same time there appeared two ballads
entitled respectively The Queen’s and My Lord
of Oxford’s New Toast and The Queen’s and the
Duke of Ormond’s New Toast which, although
slight, bear the mark of Swift’s inspiration. The
former concludes with the lines :

To her ’tis our lives and our fortunes are owing,

To him that our credit’s reviving and growing.

That funds are established by parliament sages.

Without any tax to pay seamen their wages ;

That fifty new churches arise from our cd&l,

And provision is made for our body and soul.

As the queen and the subject have neither their peer.
She greater than Tudor, he greater than Vere ;

and the latter contains lines that are still more
Swiftian :

Brave Ormond disdains to make sale of commissions.

To be bribed by contractors on terms and conditions ;
He’s a Butler that ne’er will be censur’d for tripping.

Or making a perquisite of the bread’s chipping.

127

1712-1714

But still be content with the dues of his place.
Abhorrent of what is unlawful and base,

Tho’ a villain dares call him an ignorant novice.

And a lad that knows not how to manage his office.(6)

A month later, on February 14, Swift published,
as he tells Stella, The Fable of Midas, in which the
King of Phrygia’s love of gold and his exposure to
contempt through the discovery of his asses’ ears
are applied to Marlborough :

To whom, from Midas down, descends
That virtue in the fingers’ ends ;

What else by perquisites are meant.

By pensions, bribes and three per cent. ?

By places and commissions sold.

And turning dung itself to gold ?

By starving in the midst of store.

As t’other Midas did before ?

Besides, it plainly now appears
Our Midas, too, has asses’ ears ;

Where every fool his mouth applies,

And whispers in a thousand lies ;

Such gross delusions could not pass
Through any ears but of an ass.

Two editions of the verses in the original
broadside form are known : one bears no printer’s
name, the other that of John Morphew.(7)

The success of The Fable of Midas led Swift
in the summer to hold the Earl of Nottingham
again up to ridicule in Toland’s Invitation to

128 FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR CONTINUED

Dismal to dine with the Calf’s Head Club.(8)
It represents the pillar of high-church principles
invited to dine with the atheistical and republican
brotherhood of which Toland was a leader on
the anniversary of Charles the First’s Martyrdom,
and is an imitation of Horace’s Epistle Si poles
Archaicis, of which Swift was himself not a
little proud.

If, dearest Dismal, you for once can dine
Upon a single dish and tavern wine,

Toland to you this invitation sends,

To eat the calf’s head with your trusty friends.
Suspend awhile your vain ambitious hopes,

Leave hunting after bribes, forget your tropes,
To-morrow we our mystic feast prepare,

Where thou, our latest proselyte, shalt share. (0)

At the beginning of August, 1712, a duty of a
halfpenny or a penny, according to size, became
leviable on printed sheets, and the popular mode
of publication on a broadside sold for a penny,
for which Grub Street was a convenient by-name,
was, as Swift believed, dead and gone. For the
last fortnight of freedom from taxation he “ plied
Grub Street pretty close,” and published at least
seven penny papers of his own. At the moment
the surrender of Dunkirk to the English as a
condition of the armistice then concluded with
the French was the great political event. Of
Dunkirk, John Hill, the brother of Swift’s friend
Mrs. Masham, was appointed governor, and the
“ stoppings ” that preceded his departure from
England and the anxiety that they caused Swift

1712-1714

129

fill no small part of the letters that took then
the place of the daily journal to Stella.

One of the penny papers with which Swift
plied Grub Street was Peace and Dunkirk :

Spite of Dutch friends and English foes,

Poor Britain shall have peace at last :

Holland got towns, and we got blows ;

But Dunkirk’s ours, we’ll hold it fast ;

We have got it in a string,

And the whigs may all go swing.

For among good friends I love to be plain ;

All their false deluded hopes
Will, or ought to, end in ropes ;

But the Queen shall enjoy her own again.

It was issued with the following heading and
imprint :

Peace and Dunkirk ; Being An Excellent
New Song upon the Surrender of Dunkirk
to General Hill.

London, Printed in the Year, 1712.(10)

In writing to Stella, Swift mentions Peace and
Dunkirk as a Ballad on Dunkirk, and he refers
also in writing to her to —

A Hue and Cry after Dismal ; Being a full and
true Account, how a Whig L — d was taken
at Dunkirk, in the Habit of a Chimney-
sweeper, and carryed before General Hill,

a copy of which was recently sold in London.(ll)
9

130 FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR CONTINUED

In close connexion with these is a ballad which
was issued with the heading :

The Description of Dunkirk with Squash’s
and Dismal’s Opinion How easily Prince
Eugene may retake it, and many other
matters of the last Importance.

This ballad, which is evidently from Swift’s pen,
opens thus :

Harley at length has reaped the fame.

His father sow’d in actions just,

And rais’d his family a name
Renown’d for faithfulness in trust.

Dunkirk to save for England’s good

Sir Edward strove with might and main,

Which without cost, and without blood,

His son does gloriously regain.

Our whigs are mad, the Dutch repine,

The Germans gnash their teeth to see
His measures crown’d in each design,

In spite of their- inveteracy .(12)

During that year another political piece in
verse, Atlas, or The Minister of State, which was
addressed to Oxford, saw probably also the light.
It has been variously dated 1710 and 1712, and
as the former year is impossible, the latter
becomes likely to be correct. It reminds Oxford
of the story of Atlas and Hercules, and suggests
that he should make use of a minister “ of second
rate.” With it possibly a passage in the Journal
to Stella under March 4, 1712, may have some

1712-1714

131

connexion : speaking of the weakness of the tory
majority in the House of Lords, Swift says that
Oxford has much ado to keep his followers together,
and is not able to oblige them as he would, and
then adds, “ I doubt, too, he does not take care
enough about it, or cannot do all himself, and will
not employ others, which is his great fault, as
I have often told you.”(13)

An interval of more than a year elapses before
a date can be affixed with certainty to any of
Swift’s acknowledged verse. Meantime Swift had
been appointed Dean of St. Patrick’s, had visited
Ireland to be installed, and had returned to Eng-
land. Within six weeks of his return there issued
from the press his Imitation of part of Horace’s
Quinque dies,{ 14) which was published with the
title and imprint :

Part of the Seventh Epistle of the First
Book of Horace Imitated : And Address’d
to a Noble Peer.

London : Printed for A. Dodd, at the Peacock
without Temple-Bar. 1713. Price 3d.

Remarkable as this piece is for pleasantry and
satire mixed with unpretending pathos, it is said
by Hazlitt to place Swift in the first rank of agree-
able moralists, (15) and the description of Erasmus
Lewis as the Consul Phillipus, and Swift as the
unsophisticated parson, is pronounced by Court-
hope truly admirable :(16)

Lewis his patron’s humour knows,

Away upon his errand goes,

132 FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR CONTINUED

And quickly did the matter sift ;

Found out that it was Doctor Swift,

A clergyman of special note

For shunning those of his own coat,

Which made his brethren of the gown
Take care betimes to run him down :

No libertine, nor over nice,

Addicted to no sort of vice,

Went where he pleas’d, said what he thought ;
Not rich, but owed no man a groat ;

In state opinions a la mode,

He hated Wharton like a toad ;

Had given the faction many a wound,

And libell’d all the junta round ;

Kept company with men of wit,

Who often father’d what he writ :

His works were hawk’d in every street,

But seldom rose above a sheet.

But no less striking for their intensity are the
lines in which he tells of his new dignity and his
necessities :

Suppose him now a dean complete,.

Devoutly lolling in his seat.

The silver verge, with decent pride,

Stuck underneath his cushion side ;

Suppose him gone through all vexations,
Patents, instalments, abjurations,

First-fruits and tenths, and chapter-treats.
Dues, payments, fees, demands, and cheats —
The wicked laity’s contriving.

To hinder clergymen from thriving.

Now all the doctor’s money’s spent.

His tenants wrong him in his rent ;

1712-1714

133

The farmers, spitefully combined,

Force him to take his tithes in kind,

And Parvisol discounts arrears
By bills for taxes and repairs.

The piece attained rapid popularity : several
editions of it were issued, as well by John Mor-
phew as by Dodd, and it continued to be adver-
tised for six months. There was also an edition
published in Dublin by John Henley in Castle
Street.(17)

Soon after the Imitation of Horace’s Quinque
dies appeared, the marriage of Oxford’s son to
the only child of the great Duke of Newcastle,
of the Holies family,(18) gave occasion for the
lines To Lord Harley on his Marriage. In this
piece, which was not printed until after Swift’s
death, (19) the young couple, who are described to
Stella by Swift as a very valuable young gentle-
man and a handsome girl with good sense and
red hair, are represented as seraphs. He is a
youth of so highly informed a spirit as to be
calculated, in spite of his handsome person, to
frighten away any but a virgin of superior mind.
Where could one be found, asks the poet,

With wit and virtue to discover,

And pay the merit of her lover,

but that discernment has been found in a de-
scendant through her mother of the Cavendish
family,

The chief among the glittering crowd.

Of titles, birth, and fortune proud.

134 FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR CONTINUED

whose sight, purified by Pallas, showed her the
virtues, fresh and blooming, of Lord Harley :

Thus Ca’endish, as Aurora bright,

And chaster than the Queen of Night,

Descended from her sphere to find

A mortal of superior kind.

But that year is notable before all else for the
composition of Cadenus and Vanessa, the longest
and perhaps the best metrical piece written by
Swift. According to statements made by Swift
at the time of its publication, thirteen years
later, the piece was conceived and written in the
year 1712, at Windsor, where Vanessa is known
to have descended upon him. In his own words,
it was a task performed on a frolic among some
ladies. (20) But it cannot have assumed the form
known to us until after Swift’s appointment as
Dean of St. Patrick’s, which made the use of the
sobriquet Cadenus appropriate. The piece con-
tains eight hundred and eighty-nine lines, the
odd number being accounted for by the object
of Swift’s detestation, a triplet, which has some-
how slipped in. The argument is well known :
fines 1 to 125 tell of the trial before Venus to decide
whether the shepherds or the nymphs are respon-
sible for marriage becoming a question of intrigue
and money rather than of love, and of the conten-
tion of the shepherds that the nymphs are moved
by caprice and folly and attract none but fools, or
fops, or rakes ; lines 126 to 303 tell of the project
Venus carries out to regain her empire over
marriage by forming a maid who will combine

1712-1714

135

not only the feminine qualities of virtue and
beauty, but also those of the other sex — knowledge,
judgement, and wit ; and tell of Pallas, whose aid
Venus had secured by a trick, prophesying that
heavenly wisdom could not prove an instrument
of earthly love and that her creation would prove
her greatest foe ; lines 304 to 465 tell of Vanessa,
or Van Esther, as the child was called, entering the
world, of the conversation of the fops whom she
overwhelms by her learning, of the conversation
of the dames whom she treats with disdain, and
of the admission to her society of those with
gifts superior to the crowd, including some of the
clergy for the sake of Cadenus, whom Pallas had
enlisted as a coadjutor in defeating Venus ;
lines 466 to 593 tell of Cupid’s discharging arrows
pointed at colonels, lords, and beaux, which
Cadenus, in the capacity of tutor, wards off,
of Cupid’s conclusion that Vanessa would only
be satisfied with a doctor, both to adore and
instruct her, of Cupid’s arrow piercing through
a copy of Cadenus’s Miscellanies, and of Vanessa
dreaming of § gown of forty-four, until Cadenus’s
teaching was unheeded ; lines 594 to 827 tell of
Vanessa’s declaration to Cadenus of her love for
him, of his reflections and of the discussion that
ensued ; and lines 828 to 889 tell of Venus giving
judgement in the trial, which had dragged on for
years, against the men, of her complaint that when
she found a nymph with wit and sense a lover
could not be found, and of her determination, if
she were to begin again, to reform men, or add
some grains of folly to women, to make them equal.

136 FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR CONTINUED

By all critics except Taine, Cadenus and Vanessa
has been commended : its elegant ease appealed
to Goldsmith, its urbanity to Drake, its delicacy
to Courthope. But in the consideration of the
relations between Cadenus and Vanessa which it
discloses, sight has been lost of passages impressed
in the highest degree with Swift’s gifts of intensity
and humour. What could be more exhaustive
than the list of the occupations of the fashionable
women of the day as given by the counsel for the
shepherds :

A dog, a parrot, or an ape,

Or some worse brute in human shape,

Engross the fancies of the fair,

The few soft moments they can spare,

From visits to receive and pay,

From scandal, politics, and play,

From fans, and flounces, and brocades,

From equipage and park parades,

From all the thousand female toys,

From every trifle that employs
The out. or inside of their heads,

Between their toilets and their beds.

From the description of the procedure in
Vanessa’s court one might suppose Swift to have
been a lawyer :

The goddess soon began to see,

Things were not ripe for a decree,

And said, she must consult her books.

The lovers’ Fletas, Bractons, Cokes :

First to a dapper clerk she beckon’d
To turn to Ovid, book the second ;

1712-1714

137

She then referred them to a place
In Virgil, vide Dido’s ease :

As for Tibullus’s reports,

They never pass’d for law in courts :

For Cowley’s briefs, and pleas of Waller
Still their authority was smaller ;

There was on both sides much to say :

She’d hear the cause another day ;

And so she did, and then a third
She heard it — there she kept her word :

But, with rejoinders and replies.

Long bills, and answers stuff’d with lies,

Demur, imparlance, and essoign,

The parties ne’er could issue join :

For sixteen years the cause was spun.

And then stood where it first begun.

A very different theme, the conversationof the fops
with Vanessa, is treated with no less knowledge :

They ask’d her how she lik’d the play ;

Then told the tattle of the day ;

A duel fought last night at two.

About a lady — you know who ;

Mention’d a new Italian, come
Either from Muscovy or Rome ;

Gave hints of who and who’s together ;

Then fell to talking of the weather ;

Last night was so extremely fine,

The ladies walk’d till after nine ;

Then, in soft voice and speech absurd.

With nonsense every second word.

With fustian from exploded plays.

They celebrate her beauty’s praise ;

Run o’er their cant of stupid lies.

And tell the murders of her eyes.

138 FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR CONTINUED

In the conversation of the glittering dames Swift
is found equally at home :

Discoursing with important face,

On ribands, fans, and gloves, and lacc ;

Show’d patterns just from India brought,

And gravely ask’d her what she thought,

Whether the red or green were best,

And what they cost ? Vanessa guess’d.

As came into her fancy first ;

Nam’d half the rates, and lik’d the worst.

To scandal next — What awkward thing
Was that last Sunday in the ring ?

I’m sorry Mopsa breaks so fast :

I said her face would never last.

Corinna, with that youthful air,

Is thirty, and a bit to spare :

Her fondness for a certain earl
Began when I was but a girl !

Phillis, who but a month ago
Was married to the Tunbridge beau,

I saw coquetting t’other night
In public with that odious knight.

And for humour, what can surpass the concluding
lines :

The crier was order’d to dismiss
The court, so made his last O yes.

The goddess would no longer wait ;

But, rising from her chair of state,

Left all below at six and seven,

Harness’d her doves, and flew to Heaven.

When after a lapse of thirteen years the piece
was communicated by Vanessa’s executor to the

1712-1714

189

world, it was issued by at least three different
publishers, the title-pages being as follows :

I. Cadenus and Vanessa. A Poem.

London, Printed : And Sold by J. Roberts at
the Oxford-Arms in Warwick-Lane, 1726.
Price 6d.

II. Cadenus and Vanessa. A Poem.

By Dr. S 1.

London, Printed for N. Blandford, at the
London-Gazette, Charing-Cross ; and sold
by J. Peele, at Locke’s-Head in Pater-
noster-Row. 1726. (Price 6d.)

III. Cadenus and Vanessa, a Law Case. By
Dean Swift. London. Printed for T. War-
ner, in Paternoster Row, MDCCXXVI.(21)

Of the second publication six editions are known
to have been issued. To some of these is added —

A True and Faithful Inventory of the Goods

belonging to Dr. S 1, Vicar of Lara Cor ;

upon lending his House to the Bishop of
, till his own was built.

The responsibility of Swift for attacks made
upon Steele in various pamphlets published during
the latter part of the year 1713 and beginning of
the year 1714 has been much debated. As they
are in prose, the publications in question do not
come within the purview of these pages, but two
satires in verse upon Steele, which are included
in Swift’s Works on the judgement of John
Nichols, (22) have to be considered. The first of
these satires was announced in the issue of The
Examiner for January 8, 1714, thus :

140 FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR CONTINUED

Just publish’d, The First Ode of the Seventh
Book of Horace Paraphras’d, and Ad-
dress’d to Richard St — le, Esq; Printed
for A. Dodd, at the Peacock without
Temple-Bar. Price 3d.

It was advertised in two subsequent issues of
The Examiner in January as printed for Dodd,
and, like the Imitation of Horace’s Quinque dies,
it was afterwards in May advertised as printed
for Morphew. The second of the satires was
announced in the issue of The Post Boy for April
27, 1714, as follows :

John Dennis, the Sheltring Poet’s Invitation
to Richard Steele, the secluded Party-
Writer and Member, to come and live with
him in the Mint. In Imitation of Horace’s
5th Epistle, Lib. I . And fit to be Bound
up with the Crisis. Printed for John
Morphew near Stationers-Hall. Price 3d.

The first of these satires is in parts Swiftian,
and inasmuch as it is in octosyllabic couplets
and followed the same course in publication as
the Imitation of the Quinque d,ies it is possibly
entirely Swift’s work, but at the same time the
piece does not altogether resemble in its style
anything else Swift wrote and gives ground for
doubt whether the execution is his own. As
regards the second of the satires, which is in ten-
syllable metre, there seems no reason to attribute
it to him, and there were amongst his friends those
who could equally well have composed it.

In the early part of the year 1714 the Scrib-

1712-1714

141

blerus Club, which was in full session in the middle
of the month of April, filled a large place in Swift’s
life. Although its members included Pope and
Gay, and sometimes Parnell, the only immediate
poetical outcome seems to have been two invita-
tions to Oxford to join the club, one being chiefly
and the other entirely written by Swift :

Then come and take part in
The Memoirs of Martin ;

Lay down your white staff and grey habit ;

For trust us, friend Mortimer,

Should you live years forty more,

Haec olirn meminisse juvabit.( 23 )

But behind the club hung a dark cloud caused
by the dissensions, which culminated in the
disruption of Oxford’s ministry, and the idea of
retiring from the cares that “ haunt the court
and town ” was even then in Swift’s mind. His
efforts to allay the strife had been unceasing, and
some ten days after the invitation to Oxford to
join the club was sent, a further effort was made
by him. This effort originated in a suggestion
from -the Duchess of Ormonde to remember “ the
story of the arrows that were very easily broke
singly, but when tied up close together no strength
of man could hurt them, ”(24) and it was made
in a metrical form. In The Faggot, the piece in
which the suggestion was used, a piteous picture
is given of the contentions which extended to
every member of the ministry :

This tale may be applied, in few words.

To treasurers, comptrollers, stewards,

142 FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR CONTINUED

And others, who in solemn sort,

Appear with slender wands at court ;

Not firmly join’d to keep their ground.

But lashing one another round :

While wise men think they ought to fight
With quarter-staffs instead of white ;

Or constable, with staff of peace.

Should come and make the clattering cease,
Which now disturbs the queen and court,

And gives the whigs and rabble sport.

When he comes to deal with the chief ministers.
Swift omits, no doubt with good reason, all
reference to Bolingbroke, who was then the chief
source of the strife, and makes the chancellor,
Harcourt, in the use of whose calm and judicial
mind Swift felt the only hope of success to lie,
the central figure. In referring to Bolingbroke’s
colleagues he does not allow his efforts for peace
to cease from lack of plain speaking :

Come, courtiers ; every man his stick :

Lord Treasurer, for once be quick :

And, that they may the closer cling,

Take your blue ribbon for a string.

Come, trimming Harcourt, bring your mace.

And squeeze it in, or quit your place :

Dispatch, or else that rascal Northey
Will undertake to do it for thee.

And, be assured, the court will find him
Prepared to leap o’er sticks, or bind them.

To make the bundle strong and safe,

Great Ormonde lend thy general’s staff :

And, if the crosier could be cramm’d in,

A fig for Lechmere, King, and Hambden.

1712-1714

143

You’ll then defy the strongest whig
With both his hands to bend a twig ;

Though with united strength they all pull.

From Somers, down to Craggs and Walpole.(25)

All was in vain, and the beginning of June found
Swift living with a friend of his Moor Park days
in the peaceful Berkshire rectory of Letcombe
Bassett. There he wrote his Imitation of Horace’s
Hoc erat and the piece entitled The Author upon
Himself. In the former there is no specific
reference to the disagreements of the ministers,
and happier times is the topic :

’Tis, let me see, three years and more,

October next it will be four.

Since Harley bid me first attend,

And chose me for an humble friend ;

Would take me in his coach to chat.

And question me of this and that ; -
As What’s o’clock ? and How’s the wind ?
Whose chariot’s that we left behind ?

Or gravely try to read the lines
Writ underneath the country signs ;

Or, Have ‘you nothing new to-day
From Pope, from Parnell, or from Gay ?

Such tattle often entertains
My lord and me as far as Staines,

As once a week we travel down
To Windsor, and again to town,

Where all that passes inter nos
Might be proclaimed at Charing-Cross.

But at the same time in the opening and con-
cluding lines the desire for peace, or, if that is

144 FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR CONTINUED

impossible, for oblivion, is paramount. Although
in a letter to him before he left Letcombe Bassett,
Ford begs him to send or bring to London his
Hoc erat,( 26) it is probable that he did not then
allow others to see it, and it was not published for
fourteen years, (27) and was never completed until
Pope added lines which Swift did not consider
“ at all a right imitation of his style.”(28) In the
tone that pervades The Author upon Himself,
the circumstances of the moment are visible,
and in the concluding lines he describes his
departure from London :

By faction tired, with grief he waits awhile,

His great contending friends to reconcile,

Performs what friendship, justice, truth require ;
What could he more, but decently retire ?

The piece tells of his greatness with secretaries of
state, of the enmity of Nottingham in the Lords
and of Walpole and Aislaby in the Commons,
and of even greater foes, the Duchess of Somerset,
the Archbishop of York, and Queen Anne herself,
who are introduced in the opening fines as sharing
the opinions of the stupid clergy :

by an old ***** pursued,

A crazy prelate, and a royal prude ;

By dull divines, who look with envious eyes
On every genius that attempts to rise.

And pausing o’er a pipe, with doubtful nod,

Give hints, that poets ne’er believe in God ;

So clowns on scholars as on wizards look,

And take a folio for a conjuring book.(29)

1712-1714

145

NOTES

1. See Appendix V.

2. Political State of Great Britain, iii. 13.

3. Works of Matthew Prior, edited by Alfred R.
Waller, 1907, ii. 380.

4. Prince Eug&ne landed in England on January 5.

5. British Museum, 162. m. 70 (13). Probably Arbuth-
not, if not Swift, had some part in two other ballads of a
similar kind published that year — An Excellent Old
Ballad made at the Restoration of King Charles the
Second, with a Second Part to the same Tune by a
Modern Hand, and Whiggism laid open and The Loyal
Churchman’s Health. There had also been a ballad re-
sembling these published previously — Jack Presbyter’s
Downfal : or. The Church in Glory, Occasion’d by the
Dissolution of the Late Parliament,

6. British Museum, C. 20. f. 2 (232) and 11602.112(6).

7. The Fable was not included in The Miscellanies
published in conjunction with Pope, but appears in
the edition of Swift’s Works published by Faulkner in
1735.

8. It is announced in The Examiner of July 3, 1712,
as lately published.

9. The piece was originally published as a broadside,
at a price of one penny, without printer’s name. It
was included in Swift’s Works by Hawkesworth in 1765.

10. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Nichols in 1776.

11. By Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge on 27 June, 1927.

12. Appendix VI.

13. This piece appears in the Miscellanies of 1727,
There are also attributed to the year 1712 an Epigram
on Tom, whose fidelity to his wife was not lessened by
her cudgelling him, and a lampoon on Mrs. Manley,, the
authoress of The New Atalantis. The former was

10

146 FELLOWSHIP WITH PRIOR CONTINUED

included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner in 1735, and the
latter appears in the Miscellanies of 1727.

14. It is announced in The Examiner of October 23,
1713, as published that day.

15. Op. cit., Lecture vi.

10. Op. cit., vol. v, p. 134.

17. The piece appears in the Miscellanies of 1727. It
had been published previously in 1720 by the Society de
Propaganda, in 1721 by Fairbrother and in 1722 by Curll.

18. On October 31, 1713.

19. It was included in Swift’s Works by Hawkesworth
in 1765.

20. Swift’s Corr., iii. 305, 313, 459.

21. The piece appears in the Miscellanies of 1727,
and (with the sub- title ‘ A Law Case ’) in Curll’s
Miscellanea, 1727, i. 88.

22. In 1776.

23. Swift’s Corr., ii. 416.

24. Ibid., ii. 133.

25. It was included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner in
1735.

26. Swift’s Corr., ii. 217.

27. The piece appears in the Miscellanies of 1727.

28. Spence’s Anecdotes, edited by John Underhill,
p. 88. The piece was published in 1738 as a pamphlet
in a handsome folio form, with the following title-page :
An Imitation of the Sixth Satire of the Second Book of
Horace. Hoc erat in Votis, &e. The first Part done
in the Year 1714, By Dr. Swift. The latter Part now
first added, And never before Printed. London :
Printed for B. Motte and C. Bathurst in Fleet-Street,
and J. and P. Knapton in Ludgate-Street, Mdccxxxviii.
Price one Shilling.

29. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Faiflkner in' 1735.

CHAPTER VII

HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS
Ann. Dom. 1714-1723. Aet. suae 46-56

During the first three years of his residence in
Ireland as Dean of St. Patrick’s, Swift was cut
off from anyone at all likely to kindle the flame
of versification. Such a part would have been
well filled by Parnell, who had been intimate
with Swift in London, and was considered by
Swift, before he knew Pope and in the absence of
Prior, to exceed all London poets “by a bar-
length, ”(1) but the insufficiency of Parnell’s tory
faith divided him from Swift. At that time
Swift could not tolerate anyone who countenanced
a whig, and he intrenched himself within a circle
of the strongest sympathizers that he could find,
a proceeding that brought him into much dis-
repute with the government of the day, as at
least one of the circle was prepared to go beyond
Swift’s policy of passive resistance and actively to
assist the Jacobite cause.

But at the end of three years the circle was
enlarged by the addition of two friends satisfying
the political test, who were destined to draw
Swift into many contests in versification, the
Reverend Thomas Sheridan, whose fame mainly
rests on his being a friend of Swift’s and grand-
father of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and the

147

148 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

Reverend Patrick Delany, whose fame rests on
his being also a friend of Swift’s and husband of
the celebrated correspondent. In what connexion
the tie between Swift and Sheridan began is not
certain. The earliest evidence of their being
acquainted is at the close of the year 1717, when
Sheridan was a young man of thirty coming into
notice as master of the principal school for boys
in Dublin. Of the commencement of their friend-
ship all that Swift tells in The History of the
Second Solomon is that after they had become
acquainted, he treated Sheridan, who was
“ familiar in his house,” with great kindness,
and that within three months he was made by
Sheridan the subject of a long poem describing
his muse as dead and making “ a funeral solem-
nity with asses, owls, &c.,” of which Sheridan
gave copies to all his friends. With Delany,
Swift appears to have become acquainted at the
same time as with Sheridan, of whom Delany was
a close friend. Like Sheridan, Delany was some
twenty years Swift’s junior, but he was on more
equal ground, as a fellow of Trinity College,
Dublin, and as author of A Long History of a
Short Session of a Certain Parliament in a Certain
Kingdom, which gave expression to the political
opinions of the great apostle of toryism in Ireland,
Lord Chancellor Phipps, to whom Delany had
been chaplain.

Before Sheridan’s influence became effective,
between the autumn of 17X4 and winter of 1717,
Swift’s metrical output, so far as he acknowledged,
was confined to four pieces. The first piece. In

1714-1723

149

Sickness, originated in the depression caused by
learning of the complete eclipse of the tory
ministers. It was written in October 1714.
Until then Swift had buoyed himself up with
hope that some of his friends would have been
admitted to the counsels of George the First,
and on hearing that his expectations had not been
fulfilled, he wrote a letter to Arbuthnot, that
“ even in affliction ” made Arbuthnot melan- #
choly.(2) Friend to Swift’s life as Arbuthnot had
been, as much as to Pope’s, the burden of the
lines, In Sickness, is regret for absence from him :

’Tis true — then why should I repine
To see my life so fast decline ?

But why obscurely here alone.

Where I am neither loved nor known ?

My state of health none care to learn ;

My life is here no soul’s concern ;

And those with whom I now converse
Without a tear will tend my hearse ;

Removed from kind Arbuthnot’s aid,

Who knows his art, but not his trade.

Preferring his regard for me
Before his credit, or his fee.(3)

The second piece is an imitation of Horace’s Ode
Angustam amice pauperiem, addressed to the
Earl of Oxford, late lord treasurer, when he was
in the Tower, and dated 1716. In it Swift con-
veyed an assurance of his fidelity :

Next faithful Silence hath a sure reward ;

Within our breast be every secret barr’d ;

He, who betrays his friend, shall never be

Under one roof, or in one ship, with me ;

150 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

For who with traitors would his safety trust.

Lest with the wicked, heaven involve the just ?

And though the villain ’scape a while, he feels

Slow vengeance, like a bloodhound, at his hcels.(4)

Whether the lines reached Oxford is doubtful.
There is no record of their having done so. He
treasured everything that came to him from
Swift, and says that while in the Tower he
received only one letter from him, a letter written
within ten days of his confinement, and that this
letter his son kept as a family monument. (5)
The third piece, which is also dated 1716, is in a
light vein, and it is a curious coincidence that
it should come in close proximity to the Ode to
Oxford, as it refers to Staines, one of the land-
marks in Swift’s journeys to Windsor with
Oxford. In Phyllis, or The Progress of Love,
the story is told of a mesalliance between a young
lady and her father’s butler, and of their estab-
lishment as the landlord and landlady of the
Staines inn, the Blue Boar. (6) The fourth piece,
an address to Sheridan in Latin hexameters, is
dated October 1717 and is headed Ad amieum
eruditum Thomam Sheridan.(7) Of these lines,
according to Lord Orrery, Swift was more proud
than of many of his best English performances,
although, in Orrery’s opinion,(8) if the lines had
been produced by any other author, they would
have undergone a severe censure.

After Swift’s death there was attributed to
him The Fable of the Bitches, written in. 1715 on
an attempt to repeal the Test Act.(9) This piece
seems to have been occasioned by the proceedings

1714-1723

151

of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
in May and the correspondence that ensued. In
the next year, 1716, if Sir Walter Scott is correct,
Swift wrote also a parody in verse of a speech
made by the Provost of Trinity College, Dublin,
to the Prince of Wales, the future George the
Second, on his appointment as Chancellor of
Dublin University in place of the second Duke
of Ormonde. The parody was found by Sir
Walter Scott in Th& Whimsical Medley, (10) but
it exists also in a contemporaneous broadside
with the heading :

The Speech of the P — st of T — -y C — ge to
his Royal Highness George * Prince of
Wales.(ll)

Of Oxford University as well as of Dublin Or-
monde had been chancellor, and in the parody
the conduct of Dublin in choosing as Ormonde’s
successor the Prince of Wales is contrasted with
that of Oxford in choosing as Ormonde’s successor
his brother the Earl of Arran :

Since Ormonde’s like a traitor gone,

We scorn to do, what some have done.

For learning much more famous ;

Fools may pursue their adverse fate.

And stick to the unfortunate ;

We laugh while they condemn us.

For being of that gen’rous mind,

To success we are still inclined.

And quit the suffering side,

If on our friends cross planets frown.

We join the cry and hunt them down.

And sail with wind and tide.

152

HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

Hence ’twas this choice we long delay’d.

Till our rash foes the rebels fled,

Whilst fortune held the scale ;

But, since, they’re driven like mist before you,
Our rising sun, we now adore you,

Because you now prevail.(12)

The first harbinger of a war of verse, which
was the immediate outcome of Swift’s making
acquaintance with Sheridan, is to be found in
lines addressed to Swift on New Year’s Bay,
1718, by George Rochfort, the eldest son of
Swift’s great tory ally ex-Chief Baron Rochfort.
At the time the lines were written Swift was at
Laracor, and Rochfort was with Swift’s friends
the Grattans at their house Belcamp, a few miles
to the north of Dublin.(13) Besides the Grat-
tans, the rector of the parish, Jack Jackson,
and his brother Dan were of the party, and all
were intent on cards until, as Rochfort tells
Swift, his fancy on rhyming —

Does Jack’s utter ruin at piquet prevent ;

For an answer in specie to yours must be sent,

So this moment at crambo, not shuffling, is spent,

And I lose by this crotchet, quatorze, point and quint.(14)

As Swift is known not only to have addressed the
lines to Sheridan but also to have been present at
a play performed by his pupils before the previous
Christmas,(15) it is possible that Sheridan may
have had some part in provoking the contest
between Laracor and Belcamp. At least it is
certain that in the coming year Sheridan and
Delany are found joining with Swift and Roch-

1714-1723

153

fort in a battle in doggerel verse, about Dan
Jackson’s nose, which in Swift’s opinion was a
fit subject for “the obliging jest.”(16) In three
of the lines then written. Swift tells how differently
he had been occupied of late :

I spend my time in making sermons,

Or writing libels on the Germans,

Or murmuring at whigs’ preferments, (17)

and Delany considered it a proof of Swift’s good
humour and good sense that he should have joined
in such a pastime.(18) But Swift became soon
bitten by the amusement, and the battle about
Jackson’s nose was succeeded in September and
October by a battle about nothing between Swift
and Sheridan.(19) A few weeks later Swift sent
to Delany lines in which with a wealth of graceful
phrase he asks Delany to hint to Sheridan that he —

sallies oft beyond his bounds.

And takes unmeasurable rounds.(20)

It is fortunate that the lines survive, for Delany
was under the impression that he had burned
them in “ a fif of mortification,” which it is not
easy to understand inasmuch as he considered
the verses the most refined that Swift ever wrote
and a great compliment.(21)

So far as existing pieces show, it was in 1719
that Stella’s birthday, which fell on March 13,
was celebrated first by Swift in verse. No compli-
ment was ever conveyed with more ingenuity
or apparent ease :

Oh ! would it please the gods to split
Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit ;

154

HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

No age could furnish out a pair
Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair ,*

With half the lustre of your eyes,

With half your wit, your years, and size ;

And then, before it grew too late,

Plow should I beg of gentle fate,

That cither nymph might have her swain,

To split my worship too in twain.(22)

In that year Swift wrote also probably an Ode
to Archbishop King in imitation of Horace’s Ne
forte credas, which cannot have had its origin
in anything less than the archbishop’s opposition
at that time to the policy of the government and
consequent omission from the number of the
lords justices. (23) But the high level of these
pieces was not unbroken, and there is in existence,
as a counterblast, another battle in doggerel verse
with Shexidan at the close of that year, (24) as
well as lines addressed to him on the publication
of his Art of Punning. {2 5)

The year 1720 is marked not only by an increase
in the number of notable pieces, but also by
variety in the form of verse. In the octosyllabic
couplet there are lines to Stella and a piece
entitled The Progress of Poetry ; in octosyllabic
quatrains there are two pieces entitled The Pro-
gress of Beauty and The Run upon the Bankers ;
in four-syllable quatrains a piece entitled The
Description of an Irish Feast; in ten-syllable
couplets a piece entitled An Elegy on Demar ;
and in ballad strains An Excellent New Song on
a Seditious Pamphlet. The lines to Stella were
occasioned by her visiting Swift during a long

1714-1723

155

illness from which he suffered in the early part
of the year 1720 and are most pleasing :

How would ingratitude delight,

And how would censure glut her spite.

If I should Stella’s kindness hide
In silence, or forget with pride ?

When on my sickly couch I lay.

Impatient both of night and day,

Lamenting in unmanly strains,

Call’d every pow’r to ease my pains ;

Then Stella ran to my relief,

With cheerful face and inward grief ;

And, though by Heaven’s severe decree
She suffers hourly more than me.

No cruel master could require.

From slaves employ’d for daily hire.

What Stella, by her friendship warm’d.

With vigour and delight perform’d.(26)

In contrast there come The Progress of Beauty
and The Progress of Poetry. The former, which
is in the style of the better-known Lady’s Dressing
Room, unveils what cosmetics conceal, and the
latter tells how in plenty the poet is indolent
and how in want he makes Grub Street ring.(27)
The Description of an Irish Feast is an adaptation
of an Irish song and attracted Saintsbury by
its wild rhymes and fantastic breakdowns of
cadenee.(28) In the reference to the end of the
feast it shows that Swift was not wanting in
perception of the Irish character :

With cudgels of oak.

Well harden’d in flame,

A hundred heads broke,

A hundred struck lame : —

156

HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

You churl, I’ll maintain
My father built Lusk,

The castle of Slane,

And Carriekdrumrusk :

The Earl of Kildare,

And Moynalta, his brother,

As great as they are,

I was nurs’d by their mother;

Ask that of old madam :

She’ll tell you who’s who,

As far up as Adam,

She knows it is true. (29)

In the Elegy on Demar, the elegies that were then
hawked about the streets are imitated. It was
published, like them, on a broadside with a black
border and headed :

An Elegy On the much lamented Death of
Mr. Demar, the Famous rich Man, who
died the 6th of this Inst. July, 1720.(30)

The other pieces were occasioned by public
events. In An Excellent New Song upon a
Seditious Pamphlet, which is an imitation of The
Song of the Cut-purse, Swift took vengeance
on the grand jury that found a true bill against
the printer of his Proposal for the Universal
Use of Irish Manufactures :

Whoever our trading with England would hinder.

To inflame both the nations do plainly conspire,

Because Irish linen will soon turn to tinder.

And wool it is greasy, and quickly takes fire.

1714-1723

157

Therefore, I assure ye,

Our noble grand jury.

When they saw the dean’s book, they were in a great
fury;

They would buy English silks for their wives and their
daughters,

In spite of his deanship and journeyman Waters ;(31)

and The Run upon the Bankers was written no
doubt in the autumn, when Swift wrote to Vanessa
that “ conversation was full of nothing but South
Sea and the ruin of the kingdom and scarcity of
money.”(32)

The multitude’s capricious pranks.

Are said to represent the seas,

Which, breaking bankers and the banks.

Resume their own whene’er they please.(33)

The next year, 1721, opened with a trial of
wit between Swift and Delany. On calling at
the Deanery on Tuesday, January 10, a date
given with precision, Delany found Swift away
andr Stella in possession. With her aid he wrote
on the window-glass two sets of eleven-syllable
couplets : the first set recorded that in the time
of Swift’s predecessor the Deanery was remark-
able for its meat, and in the time of Swift for its
wine, and the second set alleged that when Swift
went away he left as host his patron Apollo to
supply the want of meat by “ the thoughts he
inspired.”(34) On his return Swift wrote a long
and elaborate piece in the same metre which
purported to be a communication from Apollo to

158

HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

himself and expressed Apollo’s great dissatisfac-
tion at the treatment he received from mortals
below and particularly from —

a comrade of yours, that trai tor Delany,

Whom I for your sake have used better than any.
And of my mere motion and special good grace,
Intended in time to succeed to your place.

The god went on then to accuse Delany of writing
the lines on a window —

with felonious intent,

Direct to the north where I never once went,

and of stealing the idea of the verses out of his
box at Parnassus. Incidentally there is reference
to Stella as a nymph Apollo had courted some
ten years before : her graceful black locks are
now tinged with grey, but —

the gifts I bestow’d her will find her a lover.

Though she lives till she’s grey as a badger all over.(35)

On February 27 Delany responded in the same
metre with an account of an assembly of "the
poets convened at Parnassus on the 10th of
that month by Apollo in order that they might
nominate one to be his vicegerent below, and
tells how for various reasons Apollo put aside
Trapp, Prior, Pope and Gay, until —

the whole audience soon found out his drift,

The convention was summon’d in favour of Swift.(36)

Finally Swift wrote a piece in octosyllabic coup-
lets purporting to be directions from Apollo to

1714-1723

159

his subjects below to follow Swift’s leading and
not to trace beaten paths. Imitations of the
lines to Biddy Floyd are amongst other things
deprecated, and a new subject for verse is sug-
gested in the Dowager Lady Donegal “ the glory
of the Granard race,” then recommended to
Swift by the tory views of its members. (37)
Lines to Stella on her collecting and transcrib-
ing his Poems are connected with these pieces,
which she copied into her volume. (38) In these
lines a remarkable description of her relations
with Swift occurs :

Thou, Stella, wert no longer young,

When first for thee my harp was strung.

Without one word of Cupid’s darts, *

Of killing eyes, or bleeding hearts ;

With friendship and esteem possess’d,

I ne’er admitted Love a guest.

In all the habitudes of life.

The friend, the mistress, and the wife,

Variety we still pursue.

In pleasure seek for something new ;

• Or else, comparing with the rest.

Take comfort that our own is best ;

The best we value by the worst.

As tradesmen show their trash at first ;

But his pursuits are at an end,

Whom Stella chooses for a friend.(39)

There are also lines to Stella on her birthday
that year which pursue the subject of her charm :

And let me warn you to believe
A truth, for which your soul should grieve ;

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HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

That should you live to see the day.

When Stella’s locks must all be grey,

When age must print a furrow’d trace
On every feature of her face ;

Though you, and all your senseless tribe,
Could art, or time, or nature bribe,

To make you look like Beauty’s Queen,

And hold for ever at fifteen ;

No bloom of youth can ever blind
The cracks and wrinkles of your mind ;

All men of sense will pass your door.

And crowd to Stella’s at fourscore. (40)

At that time the end of the South Sea specula-
tion came in circumstances that, as Prior wrote
to Swift, justified the roaring of the waves and the
madness of the people being put together, (41)
and Swift gave vent to his reflections in a piece of
unusual length for him, now entitled The South
Sea Project, but originally entitled The Bubble,
as the title-page of the pamphlet in which it was
first issued shows.

The Bubble : A Poem.

London, Printed for Benj. Tooke, at 7 the
Middle-Temple-Gate in Fleetstreet ; and
Sold by J. Roberts, near the Oxford- Arms
in Warwick-Lane. M.DCC.XXI.

In the concluding stanzas Swift made use of
Prior’s remark :

Oh ! may some western tempest sweep
These locusts whom our fruits have fed,

That plague, directors, to the deep,

Driv’n from the South Sea to the Red.

1714-1723

161

May he, whom Nature’s laws obey.

Who lifts the poor, and sinks the proud,

Quiet the raging of the sea,

And still the madness of the crowd.

But never shall our isle have rest,

Till those devouring swine run down,

The devils leaving the possess’d,

And headlong in the waters drown.

The nation then too late will find.

Computing all their cost and trouble,

Directors’ promises but wind,

South Sea at best a mighty bubble.(42)

In the financial stringency that followed the
bursting of the South Sea bubble, Dublin did not
escape,(43) and the destitution amongst the
weavers, who numbered then nearly six thousand,
was great. In aid of a fund that was raised for
their relief the actors played Hamlet, and much
attention was attracted to their doing so on its
becoming known that Swift had written the
epilogue, which concluded thus :

perhaps you wonder whence this friendship springs
Between the "weavers and us playhouse kings ;

But wit and weaving had the same beginning ;

Pallas first taught us poetry and spinning :

And next observe how this alliance fits,

For weavers now are just 'as poor as wits :

Their brother quillmen, workers for the stage,

For sorry stuff can get a crown a page ;

But weavers will be kinder to the players,

And sell for twenty pence a yard of theirs.

And, to your knowledge, there is often less in
The poet’s wit, than in the player’s dressing,

IX

162 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

The epilogue and the prologue, which was
written by Sheridan, were printed in English
newspapers, and issued on single half-sheets, one
of the editions having on the recto :

An Epilogue, As it was spoke by Mr. Griffith
At the Theatre-Royal On Saturday the
First of April. In the Behalf of the
Distressed Weavers.

And on the verso :

A Prologue, Spoke by Mr. Elrington ....

Dublin Printed by John Harding.(44)

Long after Swift’s death a piece entitled The
Puppet Show, which was printed in The St. James's
Post of April 21, 1721, was attributed to him. It
resembles The Run upon the Bankers and The
Bubble in form and style, and justifies in these
respects as well as in others the attribution to
Swift. Puppet shows were then a rage in Dublin,
and, owing to the injury done to the theatre,
Sheridan had been induced' to write a farce
entitled Punch turned Schoolmaster for the
actors as a counter-blast. His effort had fiot
been successful, and is criticized in the piece
thus :

Tell Tom, he draws a farce in vain,

Before he looks in nature’s glass ;

Puns cannot form a witty scene,

Nor pedantry for humour pass.

To make men act as senseless wood.

And chatter in a mystic strain.

Is a mere force on flesh and blood.

And shows some error in the brain.

1714-1723

108

He that would thus refine on thee.

And turn thy stage into a school,

The jest of Punch will ever be.

And stand confess’d the greater fool.(45)

During the seven years that had elapsed since
he returned to Ireland, Swift had paid several
visits to his friends the Rochforts at their seat
Gaulstown, in the county of Westmeath, and that
summer he paid one that extended to nearly
four months. In addition to the ex-chief baron,
his sons George and John, and his daughter-in-law,
George’s wife, who was a daughter of the third
Earl of Drogheda, Dan Jackson of the nose,
Sheridan, and Delany were of the party. Of
their life a realistic picture is given in The Country
Life, which was issued as a broadside with the
title The Journal. In the following lines Swift’s
enemies found opportunity to asperse Swift for
lack of reverence :

From the four elements assembling,

Warn’d by the bell, all folks come trembling,

From airy, garrets some descend.

Some from the lake’s remotest end ;

My lord and dean the fire forsake,

Dan leaves the earthy spade and rake ;

The loit’rers quake, no corner hides them.

And Lady Betty soundly chides them.(46)

The Journal was supplemented by a renewal
of the battle in doggerel verse, in which nearly
all the inmates of the house took part.(47)

The death in 1721 of one of the Irish judges,
whose professional reputation was not high, was

164

HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

marked by a severe satire from Swift’s pen
entitled A Quibbling Elegy on the Worshipful
Judge Boat. It has been suggested that Swift’s
resentment arose from some injury done him by
Boate in his judicial capacity, but the origin of
the satire is possibly to be found in the fact that
Boate was connected with Swift’s great friend
Knightly Chetwode, through Chetwode’s wife,
and as in his will he recommends his executor
to compel Chetwode to make a settlement, it
may be opined that their relations were not too
cordial. The Elegy begins :

To mournful ditties, Clio, change thy note,

Since cruel fate has sunk our Justice Boat,

Why should he sink, where nothing seem’d to press.

His lading little, and his ballast less ? (48)

It is also probable that it was at that time that
lines headed A Wicked Treasonable Libel, which
Sir Walter Scott attributes to Swift, were written.
They relate to the rumour that George the First
was about to divorce his consort and declare a
marriage with the Duchess of Kendal.

In addition to the prose attacks which Swift
wrote that autumn on the proposal to found a
public bank in Dublin, a ballad was issued
by him with the following heading and imprint :

The Bank thrown down. To an Excellent
New Tune.

Dublin : Printed by John Harding in Moles-
worth-Court.

It is not the least striking production of the
kind for which Swift was responsible. By raising

1714-1723 163

the bank its friends were about to shut out
the river :

The dams and the weirs must all be your own,

You get all the fish, and others get none.

We look for a salmon, you leave us a stone ;

But thanks to the House, the projectors look blank,

And thanks to those members that kick’d down the
bank.(49)

The political verve that Swift showed in the
opposition to the establishment of the bank did
not end there, and, with one or two exceptions,
the metrical pieces written by him in 1722 were
on subjects of public interest. One of the excep-
tions, which is dated by Swift January 1722, tells
of The Progress of Marriage as exemplified in the
case of Swift’s lifelong friend, Provost Pratt, who
towards the close of his life had been appointed
Dean of Down, and little more than a year before
his death, which occurred in December 1721, had
taken unto himself a wife in the person of “a
handsome young imperious girl,” daughter of the
Earl of Ahercorn of that time, and in the piece
Swift lays bafe the secrets of the bridal chamber,
and attributes the death of his friend to his
union with one to whom he wishes no good fate.(50)
Another of the exceptions is a piece of a very
different kind, the lines which marked Stella’s
birthday that year ; these are singularly pretty
in their conception, and show Swift at his best
poetically.

You every year the debt enlarge,

I grow less equal to the charge ;

166

HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

In you each virtue brighter shines,

But my poetic vein declines ;

My harp will soon in vain be strung,

And all your virtues left unsung,

For none among the upstart race
Of poets dare assume my place ;

Your worth will be to them unknown,

They must have Stellas of their own ;

And thus, my stock of wit decay’d,

I dying leave the debt unpaid,

Unless Delany, as my heir,

Will answer for the whole arrear.(51)

Of the pieces of public interest A Satirical
Elegy on the Death of a late Famous General
was elicited by the death in the summer of that
year of the Duke of Marlborough :

Come hither, all ye empty things,

Ye bubbles rais’d by breath of kings,

Who float upon the tide of state ;

Come hither, and behold your fate ;

Let Pride be taught by this rebuke,

How very mean a thing’s a duke ;

From all his ill-got honours flung.

Turn’d to that dirt from whence he sprung.(52)

A month later the unveiling of a statue of
George the First in Dublin was marked by a
ballad in which the mind of Swift is seen :

For on this day, this mighty day,

An image of King George,

To frighten papists quite away,

Did show itself at large.

1714-1723

167

Their images with all their pow’rs
Let them to this oppose,

We’ll make them know this one of ours
Shall take them by the nose.

Thanks to the may’r and aldermen,

Who did this statue rear ;

Let Jacobites, tho’ nine in ten.

Come near him if they dare.

Or shou’d they their pretender bring
From Italy or Spain,

The Dublin wits and this their king
Shall drive him back again.(53)

In the autumn public events in England were
reflected in a piece Upon the Horrid Plot, dis-
covered by Harlequin the Bishop of Rochester’s
French Dog, which proved on the impeachment
of Atterbury an important link in the evidence
against him. In this piece a whig informs a tory
that their witness is a real dog :

A dog of spirit for his years.

Has twice two legs, two hanging ears ;

His name is Harlequin, I wot.

And that’s a name in every plot ;

Resolv’d to save the British nation.

Though French by birth and education ;

His correspondence plainly dated,

Was all decipher’d and translated :

His answers were exceeding pretty.

Before the secret wise committee ;

Confess’d as plain as he could bark :

Then with his fore-foot set his mark.(54)

And in the winter a piece entitled The Storm,
which was attributed to Swift after his death.

168 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

must have been written. It originated in a
tempest which placed in jeopardy at sea the lives
of two ecclesiastics of very different ability, the
illustrious George Berkeley and Josiah Hort,
whose want of academic qualifications had for a
time postponed his consecration that year as
Bishop of Ferns. (55)

At Christmas-time Swift was again on a visit
at Gaulstown and concerted there with John
Rochfort, who was a member of the Irish Parlia-
ment, the Epilogue to Mr. Hoppy’s Benefit
Night at Smock Alley Theatre. This piece was
occasioned by the exorbitant tribute demanded
by a new master of the revels, Edward Hopkins,
an English parliamentarian, then acting as
principal secretary to the lord lieutenant, and
gives a graphic picture of Hopkins in Swift’s
inimitable style.

Thus, for Iloppy’s bright merits, at length we have found
That lie must have of us ninety-nine and one pound,
Paid to him clear money once every year :

And however some think it a little too dear.

Yet, for reasons of state this sum we’ll allow,

Tho’ we pay the good man with the sweat of our brow.
First, because by the king to us he was sent.

To guide the whole session of this parliament.

To preside in our councils, both public and private.

And so learn, by the by, what both houses do drive
at.(56)

It was followed by A Prologue in which the
actors are represented as adopting the role of
strollers to avoid further rapacious demands for
tribute on Hopkins’s part.(57)

1714-1723

169

The death of Vanessa with its important bearing
on the mystery of Swift’s life is the event of all-
absorbing interest in the year 1723, and his
metrical pieces in that year arrange themselves
naturally around it. Less than three months
before it took place, Stella’s birthday was cele-
brated in lines of a jocose kind, in which a shadow
of anxiety is not to be traced and which picture
Stella as the centre of the Deanery life. The
lines tell of a buried bottle of wine being dug up,
and open with an account of Swift’s difficulty in
finding a subject :

Forsaken by th’inspiring Nine,

I waited at Apollo’s shrine :

I told him what the world would say,

If Stella were unsung to-day :

How I should hide my head for shame,

When both the Jacks and Robin came ;

How Ford would frown, how Jim would leer.
How Sheridan the rogue would sneer.

And swear it does not always follow.

That semel in anno ridet Apollo.

When the treasure is to be unearthed, Stella is
to be with them all in the cellar :

A spade let prudent Archy hold,

And with discretion dig the mould.

Let Stella look with watchful eye,

Rebecca, Ford and Grattans by. (58)

Before Vanessa had been many days in her
grave, Swift is found at the south-west point
of Ireland, inditing the Latin lines Carberice
Bupes,(5 9) of which Orrery tells us he was no less
proud than of those addressed to Sheridan, (60)

168 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

must have been written. It originated in a
tempest which placed in jeopardy at sea the lives
of two ecclesiastics of very different ability, the
illustrious George Berkeley and Josiah Hort,
whose want of academic qualifications had for a
time postponed his consecration that year as
Bishop of Ferns.(55)

At Christmas -time Swift was again on a visit
at Gaulstown and concerted there with John
Rochfort, who was a member of the Irish Parlia-
ment, the Epilogue to Mr. Hoppy’s Benefit
Night at Smock Alley Theatre. This piece was
occasioned by the exorbitant tribute demanded
by a new master of the revels, Edward Hopkins,
an English parliamentarian, then acting as
principal secretary to the lord lieutenant, and
gives a graphic picture of Hopkins in Swift’s
inimitable style.

Thus, for Hoppy’s bright merits, at length wc have found
That he must have of us ninety-nine and one pound.
Paid to him clear money once every year :

And however some think it a little too dear,

Yet, for reasons of state this sum we’ll allow,

Tho’ we pay the good man with the sweat of our brow.
First, because by the king to us he was sent,

To guide the whole session of this parliament,

To preside in our councils, both public and private.

And so learn, by the by, what both houses do drive
at.(56)

It was followed by A Prologue in which the
actors are represented as adopting the r61e of
strollers to avoid further rapacious demands for
tribute on Hopkins’s part.(57)

1714-1723

169

The death of Vanessa with its important bearing
on the mystery of Swift’s life is the event of all-
absorbing interest in the year 1723, and his
metrical pieces in that year arrange themselves
naturally around it. Less than three months
before it took place, Stella’s birthday was cele-
brated in lines of a jocose kind, in which a shadow
of anxiety is not to be traced and which picture
Stella as the centre of the Deanery life. The
lines tell of a buried bottle of wine being dug up,
and open with an account of Swift’s difficulty in
finding a subject :

Forsaken by th’inspiring Nine,

I waited at Apollo’s shrine :

I told him what the world would say.

If Stella were unsung to-day :

How I should hide my head for shame,

When both the Jacks and Robin came ;

How Ford would frown, how Jim would leer.
How Sheridan the rogue would sneer.

And swear it does not always follow.

That semel in anno ridet Apollo.

When the treasure is to be unearthed, Stella is
to be with them all in the cellar :

A spade let prudent Archy hold,

And with discretion dig the mould.

Let Stella look with watchful eye,

Rebecca, Ford and Grattans by.(58)

Before Vanessa had been many days in her
grave, Swift is found at the south-west point
of Ireland, inditing the Latin lines Carherice
Rupe$,(59) of which Orrery tells us he was no less
proud than of those addressed to Sheridan,(60)

170 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

and on his way back to Dublin in September he is
found stopping in the same house as Stella and
writing the piece entitled Stella at Wood Park, a
house of Charles Ford, Esq., near Dublin :

Yet when you sigh to leave Wood Park,

The scene, the welcome, and the spark,

To languish in this odious town,

And pull your haughty stomach down,

We think you quite mistake the case.

The virtue lies not in the place :

For though my raillery were true,

A cottage is Wood Park with you.( 61 )

Besides Cadenus and Vanessa, Swift is said to
have written two small pieces for Vanessa ; one
is in answer to a riddle composed by her on his
name (62) and the other is entitled To Love. The
theme of the latter is the hindrance of love by
discretion, and it is possibly a revision of lines
.of her own, for she is said to have attempted verse
of the kind and to have been the writer of two
pieces entitled An Ode to Spring and An Ode to
Wisdom.(63) *»

To the year 1723 there are attributed in Swift’s
Works an epigram headed John Cudgels Ned, (64)
and a piece entitled Mary the Cook-Maid’s Letter
to Doctor Sheridan, which in its long lines of
fourteen or sixteen syllables recalls Mrs. Harris’s
Petition :

Besides you found fault with our vittels one day that
you was here,

I remember it was upon a Tuesday of all days in the
year,

1714-1723 171

And Saunders, the man, says, you are always jesting
and mocking,

Mary, said he one day as I was mending my master’s
stocking,

My master is so fond of that minister that keeps the
school,

I thought my master a wise man, but that man makes
him a fool.(65)

Besides, Swift was undoubtedly author that
year of a compliment in verse addressed to the
wife of one of his political friends, Robert Cope,
an Ulster squire, to whose seat, Loughgall, in
the county of Armagh, Swift had paid a long
visit the previous summer. The piece is associated
with Swift’s favourite festival. All Fools’ Day,
and bears the title. The First of April : A Poem :

Inscribed to Mrs. E C . Catching the

spirit of the lines to Stella, it tells how the Muses —

peep’d and saw a lady there
Pinning on coifs and combing hair ;

Soft’ning with songs to son or daughter,

The persecution of cold water ;

• Still pleas’d, with the good-natur’d noise.

And harmless frolic of her boys ;

Equal to all in care and love,

Which all deserve and all improve ;

To kitchen, parlour, nursery flies,

And seems all feet and hands and eyes ;

No thought of hers does ever roam
But for her squire when he’s from home ;

And scarce a day can spare a minute.

From husband, children, wheel or spinnet.(66)

And none other than Swift could have written a

172 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

piece which was published that year as a broad-
side with the following title and imprint :

Jove’s Ramble: a Tale Shewing how the
Moon was made of a Green Cheese.

Dublin : Printed in Big Ship-street, 1723.(67)

NOTES

1. Journal to Stella, 1712, December 22.

2. Swift’s Corr., ii. 245.

3. This piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1735. It is commended by Lecky for its
poetic spirit.

4. This piece was also published first by Faulkner
in 1735.

5. Swift’s Corr., ii. 293, 399.

6. This piece appears in the Miscellanies of 1727.

7. It was included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner in '
1735. There is a copy in The Whimsical Medley.

8. Remarks on the Life and Writings of Swift, 1752,

p. 128.

9. This Fable was included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1762.

10. Scott, op. cit., xii. 378.

11. Wilde, op. cit., p. 165.

12. Attention was drawn in London to the provost
and other members of the deputation that waited -on
the Prince of Wales by a skit thus entitled : A True and
Faithful Account of the Entry and Reception of Three
Extraordinary Irish Ambassadors : Together with
Sundry Useful Particulars Thereunto relating : London :
Printed for Robert Williams at the Crown in Cornhill,
1716 (Price 3d.). The Account discusses whether one
of the deputation, the great Berkeley, was a proper
member, inasmuch as he had been in London before his

1714-1723

173

colleagues came thither, and tells that the ambassadors
are to be seen in the Mall, in the Smyrna Coffee-House,
or in some other place not far from court-air.

13. The lines are headed Musa Clonshoghiana, a Latin
form of the Irish name of the lands on which Belcamp
stands.

14. Scott, op. eit., xv. 74.

15. Forster Collection, no. 510.

16. To Dr. Delany, November 10, 1718.

17. Portions of this verse were first printed by Hawkes-
worth in 1755 and by Faulkner in 1762, and the whole
is to be found in The Whimsical Medley.

18. Delany, op. cit., p. 104.

19. Portions of this verse were first printed by
Faulkner in 1738 and 1762, by Hawkesworth in 1755,
1764 and 1775, by Dilly in 1789, and by Barrett in 1808.
The whole is to be found in The Whimsical Medley.

20. To Dr. Delany, November 10, 1718. See Swift’s
Corr., iii. 18, for covering letter from Swift. The piece
was first included in Swift’s Works by Hawkesworth
in 1765.

21 . Delany, op. cit., p. 17.

22. The lines appear in the Miscellanies of 1727. With
the exception of Taine (op. cit., iii. 233), critics have
found in them ilo ground for anything but praise.

23. The Ode was included in Swift’s Works by Faulk-
ner in 1746.

24. Portions were printed first by Hawkesworth in
1764 and by Sheridan in 1789.

25. Appendix VII.

26. The lines appear in the Miscellanies of 1727. They
bear the date October 1727, but Dr. Lyon says (Forster
Collection, no. 579) that they were written in 1720. The
previous date is evidently that on which they were sent
to Pope.

27. These pieces appear in the Miscellanies of 1727.

174 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

28. English Prosody, ii. 418.

29. This piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1785.

SO. An epitaph attached to the Elegy appears in the
Miscellanies of 1727. Both were included in Swift’s
Works by Faulkner in 1735, and were also printed in
Curll’s Miscellanies in 1722 and in Gulliveriana in 1728.
Demar is said to have attained to the age of ninety. He
is represented by an Irish correspondent in The Weekly
Journal of July 23 as a model money-lender, whose
death was an irreparable loss to Ireland.

81. The Song was included in Swift’s Works by Faulk-
ner in 1735. Swift says (Corr. iii., 64) that in Dublin
he was looked upon as the author of the Proposal, and
an answer to the Proposal was published in England as
raillery by himself on his own work. It was announced
in The Evening Post of July 23 as published that day,
thus : Dean Swift’s Defence of English Commodities :
Being an Answer to the Proposal ... To which is
annexed An Elegy upon the much lamented Death of
Mr. Demar . . . Printed at Dublin and Reprinted in
London by J. Roberts near the Oxford Arms in Warwick
Lane, pr. 6d.

32. Swift’s Corr., iii. 68.

33. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by Faulk-
ner in 1735. The ballad, Duke upon Duke, written by
Pope and Gay, in 1720, has been sometimes attributed
to Swift, and a grotesque prologue recited at the annual
dramatic performance by Sheridan pupils in that year
was fathered upon Swift in his lifetime, although written
by Helsham. Barrett attributed also to Swift a piece
on the anniversary of Charles the First’s martyrdom, and
a piece occasioned by one of George the First’s visits
to Hanover (Barrett, op. cit., p. 106 ; Wilde, op. cit.,
p. 164).

34. The lines were included in Swift’s Works by

1714-1728 175

Faulkner in 1746. They had been published by Con-
canen in 1724.

85. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1785. In the opinion of Delany (op. cit.,
p. 182), it was as refined and finely imaged as anything
that Swift ever wrote.

86. News from Parnassus, as the piece is entitled,
appeared in The Daily Post of March 22 and The Weekly
Journal of March 25. It was published by Concanen in
1724, and included in Swift’s Works by Nichols in 1776.

87. Apollo’s Edict, as the piece is entitled, was in-
cluded in Swift’s Works by Nichols in 1779. It had
originally appeared as a broadside. It was also printed
wholly or in part in Gulliveriana in 1728, and by Cooper
in 1746 and Cogan in 1752.

88. The volume was given by Swift to Sir Arthur
Acheson, and by a descendant of the latter to the Duke of
Bedford (Forster, op. cit., p. viii).

89. The lines appear in the Miscellanies of 1727.

40. These lines appear also in the Miscellanies of
1727. The year was altered by Stella from 1719/20 to
1720/21.

41. Swift’s Corr., iii. 78.

42. The verses appear in the Miscellanies of 1727.
They were published also by Concanen in 1724.

48. In The London Mercury of April 29 it is announced
that : “ Letters from Dublin advise that they feel there
more and more the woeful effects of the South Sea affair.
Their gentlemen went late into the stocks, bought dear,
extracted all the foreign gold out of Ireland, which was
the best part of their current-coin, to make those pur-
chases, so that money is become extreme scarce, the
want of which makes the country people backward to
bring their com to market, in hopes the times will mend ;
whereby provisions are near as dear again as hath been
known in that city for many years. Robberies are

176 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS

frequent in the streets, insomuch that there is no
walking out after ten at night without the utmost danger,
and to aggravate the calamity, they add that an inunda-
tion of calicoes hath of late broke in upon them.”

44. Brit. Mus. 1850. c. 10 (4). The Epilogue appears
in the Miscellanies of 1727. Both Prologue and Epilogue
were published by Concanen in 1724 and Nichols in 1776.

45. It was included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner in
1762.

46. The piece appears in the Miscellanies of 1732.
It had been previously published by Curll in 1727. In
The Whitehall Journal it was censured by Smedley
(Gulliveriana, p. 11), and in lines published as a broad-
side by William Percival, Dean of Emly.

47. It was published in part by Faulkner in 1746 and
1762, by Hawkesworth in 1765, and by Nichols in 1779.

48. It was included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner in
1735. A codicil to Boate’s will was dated July 16, and
the will was proved November 17.

49. Appendix VIII.

50. The autograph is in the Forster Collection, no.
517. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Hawkesworth in 1765.

51. The lines were included in Swift’s Works by

Hawkesworth in 1775. 0

52. It was included in Swift’s Works by Hawkesworth
in 1765.

53. Brit. Mus. 839, m. 23 (21).

54. It was included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner in
1735. Cf. The Weekly Journal of September 1 and
The Freeholder’s Journal of September 5, 1722.

55. It was included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner in
1762. It had been originally issued as a broadside, and
•was published by Bromage in 1749 and Cogan in 1752.
Cf. The Freeholder’s Journal, Dec. 12, 1722: Bishop
Nicolson’s Letters, ii. 555.

1714-1728

177

56. The Epilogue was included first in Swift’s Works
by Sir Walter Scott, who thought, however, others were
likely to have been responsible for it. It appeared in
Gulliveriana in 1728.

57. The Prologue was included in Swift’s Works by
Hawkesworth in 1765.

58. The lines appear in the Miscellanies of 1727.

59. The lines were included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1785.

60. Op. eit., p. 128.

61. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1785.

62. The Answer to the Rebus was included in Swift’s
Works by Faulkner in 1746. It had been published by
Curll in 1727.

68. To Love was included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner
in 1746, and the Odes by Hawkesworth in 1775.

64. It was included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner
in 1785.

65. The Letter appears in the Miscellanies of 1782.

66. Appendix IX.

67. Appendix X.

12

CHAPTER VIII

T HE D RAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND HIS FOES
Ann Dom. 1724-1725. Aet. suae 56-58

Swift adopted in his fight against the patent
granted to William Wood to coin halfpence and
farthings for circulation in Ireland the same
methods as he had used when supporting Oxford’s
ministry and supplemented the Drapier’s Letters,
which were published as pamphlets, by a deluge
of broadside verse. As in his London days,
friends and under spur-leathers gave assistance,
but as communication with Swift involved danger
of penal consequences to him as well as to them-
selves, they were not so closely in touch with
him as his London assistants had been, and
much of the verse which they contributed took
the form of adulation of the Drapier. Such a
mode of championship gave to the supporters
of the government an opportunity wanting on
the direct political issue, in which Swift had all
Ireland with him, and as time went on verse in
disparagement of the Drapier began to appear,
some of it being from a pen which had already
been engaged in attacks on him, and which was
by no means to be despised. As well as the
Drapier, those who assisted him did not escape
abuse, and ill services of a more serious kind were
also done them by persons anxious to stand well

1724-1725

179

in the eyes of the government. With one like
Swift ever ready to defend his friends, and not
disposed to scrutinize too closely the merits of
the case, there could be but one result. The
cause of his friends was made his own, and
retaliation led him into a position little befitting
his abilities and order.

Amongst the friends that assisted Swift, the
chief was Sheridan, whose talent for inspiration
made him an invaluable ally. To others, with
the exception of Delany who lent possibly once
or twice the aid of his pen, there is no clue. Of
under spur-leathers, songs written for the club
of the Drapier’s liegemen, who met at the Drapier’s
Head in Truck Street, show that there was no
lack. At first the only one known by name was
Samuel Owens, who described himself as a
locksmith, and is described by Swift as a black-
smith, but afterwards there appeared William
Dunkin, whose poetical talents gained him the
friendship of Chesterfield as well as of Swift,
and who was then an under-graduate in Dublin
University, a college chum of Dunkin’s, Phipps by
name, and a shoemaker called Robert Ashton.(l)

Of those whom Swift and his confederates
regarded with aversion, the mysterious Jonathan
Smedley was foremost. His similarity to Swift
is most remarkable in his name, in his education,
in his career, in his offices, in his writings and in
his Mends. He was born but four years after
Swift, was educated in Trinity College Dublin,
took holy orders, was appointed by the Crown
to the incumbency of an obscure country parish

180 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES

in Ireland, paid a prolonged visit to London,
tried to ingratiate himself with statesmen, was
appointed a dean, wrote tracts on church affairs
and familiar verse, and selected a poet as his
greatest friend. There was, however, the dis-
tinction that Smedley was a whig, and Swift
a tory, and the fundamental difference that
Smedley was an imitator, albeit a clever one,
and that Swift was a genius. From the only
reference that Swift makes in his correspondence
to Smedley, it is doubtful whether he knew him
at any time personally or not. The occasion
of the reference was Swift’s having to pay postage
on a copy of a sermon which Smedley had preached
on the birthday of the Prince of Wales in 1716 ; (2)
and the reference is in the reception of the gift
as “a scoundrel sermon of that rascal Smedley
sent me either by himself or some other dog on
purpose to put me to charge and expense.”(3)
Three years before, according to his own account,
Smedley had affixed to the door of St. Patrick’s
Cathedral on the day that Swift was installed
ironical verses, (4) and three years later, by '"an
ode which he wrote, he gave opportunity for
a parody with a lampoon on Swift prefixed.(5)
But so far as is known up to the time of the
Drapier’s Letters, Swift had not retaliated.

Next to Smedley in the ranks of the Drapier’s
objects of aversion was Ambrose Philips, the poet,
with whom Swift had been intimate in his
Addisonian days. He had come to Ireland in
the train of Primate Boulter, and he suffered
for the sins of his master rather than for his

1724-1725

181

own. After Philips there came the head of a
well-known Irish family, Richard Tighe, who had
been for twenty years a member of the Irish
parliament and was then one of the privy council.
With him Swift had been acquainted in early
years, when Stella used to play chess with him ;
but before the days of Oxford’s ministry Swift
had fallen out with “ the hot whiffling puppy ”
and sent Stella from London some titbits with
regard to Tighe’s conjugal relations.(6) And
finally, there was a poetic journalist, James
Arbuckle, who has been already mentioned in
connexion with a piece attributed to Swift when
at Oxford. While a student at Glasgow Uni-
versity he attracted attention by verses On the
Clyde and On Snuff, and in Dublin he earned
some credit by an Ode to the newly founded
Dublin Society.

The first metrical piece in which Swift refers
to Wood’s halfpence is entitled Punch’s Petition
to the Ladies. This piece originated in a further
demand for tribute from the insatiable master
of the revels, and, as allusions in the piece show,
it was written early in 1724. The performance
from which Hopkins, who is called Van der Hop,
hoped now to reap profit was the puppet-show
in Dublin which was kept by one Stretch, and
Punch, who was always the principal character
in the marionette exhibitions, is represented as
saying to Hopkins, when he asks for fifty pounds :

a devilish sum.

But stay till the brass farthings come.

182 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES

Then we shall all be rich as Jews,

From Castle down to lowest stews ;

That sum shall to you then be told*

Tho’ now we cannot furnish gold ;

to which Hopkins replies :

thou vile mis-shapen beast,

Thou knave, am I become thy jest :

And dost thou think that I am come
To carry nought but farthings home ;

Thou fool, I ne’er do things by halves.
Farthings are made for Irish slaves ;

No brass for me, it must be gold,

Or fifty pounds in silver told,

That can by any means obtain
Freedom for thee and for thy train.(7)

After the publication of the first of the
Drapier Letters, which is believed to have been
issued in April, a ballad appeared. In it Swift
had at least some share. It is now entitled A
New Song on Wood’s Halfpence, but when
issued as a broadside it had as heading :

Ireland’s Warning, Being an Excellent New
Song upon Woods’s Base Half-pence. To
the Tune of Packinton’s Pound ;

the imprint being :

Dublin : Printed by John Harding in Moles-
worth’s-Court.

This ballad, which is to the tune of Which Nobody
can Deny and not to that of Packington’s Pound,

1724-1725

183

alias The Song of the Cutpurse, refers in the
concluding verses to the Drapier and his first
letter. In that letter it says that he shows
“ the cheat from the end to the rise,” and it
closes as follows :

This book, I do tell you, is writ for your goods.

And a very good book ’tis against Mr. Woods,

If you stand true together, he’s left in the suds.

Which nobody can deny.

Ye shopmen, and tradesmen, and farmers, go read it.
For I think in my soul at this time that you need it ;

Or egad, if you don’t, there’s an end of your credit.
Which nobody can deny.(8)

Before September, when the great whig political
intelligencer Abel Boyer printed the piece (9) as
“ an authentic instance of the general ferment and
discontent in Ireland,” there appeared another
broadside with the heading and imprint :

A Serious Poem upon William Wood,
Brasier, Tinker, Hard-Ware-Man, Coiner,
Counterfeiter, Founder and Esquire.
Dublin : Printed by John Harding in Moles-
worth’s Court.

In this piece Swift refers to the power behind
the throne and represents the king’s mistresses
as having an interest in the patent :

You’ll pardon me, sir, your cunning I smoke,

But Wood, I assure you, is no heart of oak ;

And, instead of the devil, this son of perdition
Hath join’d with himself two hags in commission ;

184 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES
and again he says :

Now ask me a question. How came it to pass
Wood got so much copper ? He got it by brass ;

This brass was a dragon, observe what I tell ye,

This dragon had gotten two sows in his belly ;

I know you will say this is all heathen Greek,

I own it, and therefore I leave you to seek.(lO)

About that time Swift issued also two pieces
in praise of Archbishop King, who was no less
strenuous than Swift in opposition to the copper
coinage. The first of the pieces appeared as a
broadside with the heading and imprint :

To his Grace The Arch-Bishop of Dublin, A
Poem.

Dublin : Printed by John Harding in
. Molesworth’s- Court in Fishamble-Street.

It had as its motto :

Serus in coelum redeas diuque
Lsetus intersis populo. Hor.

In it the appellation of great, goQd and just's
applied to the archbishop, and with such a
character the poet asks :

how can we dread William Wood,

If by thy presence he’s withstood ?

Where wisdom stands to keep the field.

In vain he brings his brazen shield ;

Tho’ like the sybil’s priest he comes,

With furious din of brazen drums,

The force of thy superior voice

Shall strike him dumb, and quell their noise.

1724-1725

185

The second of the pieces had appeared also as a
broadside with the heading and imprint :

An Excellent New Song Upon His Grace Our
good Lord Archbishop of Dublin. By
honest Jo. one of His Grace’s Farmers in
Fingal.

Dublin : Printed by John Harding in Moles-
worth’s Court, 1724.

This piece, which is in long fourteen-syllable
metre, purports to be concerned alone with the
Archbishop in the category of a landlord, a pro-
vince in which he is contrasted with a neighbour-
ing noble landowner to the disadvantage of the
latter, but the halfpence are not forgotten :

Then said his lordship, with a smile, I must have
lawful cash,

I hope you will not pay my rent in that same Wood’s
trash.

God bless your grace, I then replied, I’d see him
hanging higher.

Before I’d touch his filthy dross, than is Clondalkin
spire.

To every farmer twice a week all round about the Yoke,
Our parsons read the Drapier’s book, and make us
honest folk.(ll)

Swift’s pseudo-enemy Carteret landed as lord-
lieutenant in the autumn of 1724, and his arrival
was marked by Swift with an Epigram :

Carteret was welcomed to the shore
First with the brazen camion’s roar ;

To meet him next the soldier comes.

With brazen trumps and brazen drums ;

186 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES

Approaching near the town he hears,

The brazen bells salute his ears :

But when Wood’s brass began to sound,

Guns, trumpets, drums, and bells, were drown’d.(12)

Immediately afterwards the most striking con-
tribution that Swift made in verse to the agitation
was published with the title Prometheus, a Poem.
Owing to the proclamation offering a reward for
the discovery of the Drapier which was issued on
Carteret’s arrival, the broadside bore no printer’s
name. But everyone in England as well as in
Ireland knew that a composition so excellent of
its kind could have come from none but Swift.
In the piece, which represents the Duchess of
Kendal alone as the power behind the throne, the
concluding verse was politic in a wish that
nothing should impair a good understanding
between the king and his Irish subjects :

Ye powers of Grub-street, make me able
Discreetly to apply this fable ;

Say, who is to be understood
By that old thief Prometheus ? Wood.

For Jove, it is not hard to guess him ;

I mean his majesty, God bless him.

This thief and blacksmith was so bold,

He strove to steal that chain of gold,

Which links the subject to the king,

And change it for a brazen string.

But sure, if nothing else must pass
Between the king and us but brass.

Although the chain will never crack.

Yet our devotion may grow slack.

But Jove will soon convert, I hope,

This brazen chain into a rope ;

1724-1725

187

With which Prometheus shall be tied.

And high in air for ever ride ;

Where, if we find his liver grows,

For want of vultures, we have crows.( 18 )

About the time that Prometheus was published.
Swift’s printer, Harding, was taken into custody
and an effort was made to get a grand jury of
the city of Dublin to present the Drapier’s fourth
letter as seditious. Notwithstanding that three
judges harangued the jury, pressing them with
the utmost earnestness to take that course, a
majority for it was not secured. Of the twenty-
three who composed the jury, only three were in
favour of presenting the whole letter, and although
eight joined them so far as to be willing to present
a portion of the letter, twelve remained inflexible,
and were not to be coerced into expressing dis-
approval of any part of the letter.(14) Needless
to say the three traitors to the cause of the
Drapier, who were apparently of French extrac-
tion, were not allowed to escape, and they found
..themselves the subject of a ballad, which was
published as a broadside, without a printer’s
name, headed —

An Excellent New Song upon the Late
Grand-Jury.

The ballad, which was to the tune of Which
Nobody can Deny, opened thus :

Poor Monsieur his conscience preserv’d for a year.

Yet in one hour he lost it, ’tis known far and near ;

To whom did he lose it ? A judge or a peer.

Which nobody can deny.

188 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES

This very same conscience was sold in a closet,

Nor for a bak’d loaf, or a loaf in a losset.

But a sweet sugar-plumb, which you put in a posset.
Which nobody can deny.

O Monsieur, to sell it for nothing was nonsense,

For if you wou’d sell it, it shou’d have been long since,
But now you have lost both your cake and your
conscience.

Which nobody can deny.(15)

Of the judges, one of whom was a brother of
Parnell, the poet, only Swift’s former enemy
Chief Justice Whitshed came under the lash,
but he was made the subject of some scathing
lines occasioned “ by the motto on his coach ”
and others no less virulent on the descent of “ the
upright judge.”( 16 ) Unfortunately for Whit-
shed, Libertas was one of the words in the motto,
and he is represented as thus expounding its
meaning :

Libertas bears a large import :

First, how to swagger in a court ;

And, secondly, to shew my fury
Against an uncomplying jury ; *

And, thirdly, ’tis a new invention.

To favour Wood, and keep my pension ;

And, fourthly, ’tis to play an odd trick,

Get the great seal, and turn out Brodriek ;

And, fifthly, you know whom I mean,

To humble that vexatious Dean ;

And, sixthly, for my soul to barter it
For fifty times its worth to Carteret.

As the need for agitation died away, and Wood
became impotent for harm, Swift amused himself

1724-1725

189

by writing pieces entitled Wood an Insect and
Wood an Ironmonger^ 17) The first ends thus :

But now, since the Drapier hath heartily maul’d him,

I think the best thing we can do is to scald him,

For which operation there’s nothing more proper
Than the liquor he deals in, his own melted copper ;
Unless, like the Dutch, you rather would boil
This coiner of raps in a cauldron of oil ;

Then choose which you please, and let each bring a
faggot,

For our fear’s at an end with the death of the maggot ;

and the second ends thus :

The moral of this tale is proper,

Applied to Wood’s adult’rate copper ;

Which, as he scatter’d, we like dolts
Mistook at first for thunderbolts.

Before the Drapier shot a letter.

Nor Jove himself could do it better.

Which lighting on the impostor’s crown,

Like real thunder knock’d him down.

Two ballads are believed to have come also
Jh|ien from his pen. One of these, to the tune of
Ye Commons and Peers, is entitled Will Wood’s
Petition to the People of Ireland, being an
excellent New Song, supposed to be made and
sung in the Streets of Dublin, by William
Wood, Ironmonger and Half-penny-monger.

They’ll sell to my grief,

As cheap as neck-beef,

For counters at cards to your wife ;

And every day
Your children may play
Span-farthing or toss on the knife.

190 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES

Come hither and try.

I’ll teach you to buy
A pot of good ale for a farthing ;

Come, threepence a score,

I ask you no more,

And a fig for the Drapier and Harding.(18)

The other is entitled Blueskin’s Ballad. Under
the title of Newgate’s Garland, and with varia-
tions, it has been attributed to Gay and is
included in Gay’s Works, but it was most proba-
bly written by Swift. It appeared as a Dublin
broadside, which issued from the same press as
Prometheus did in its original form, type, orna-
ments, arrangement, and paper being identical,
and it was written under a misapprehension as
to its subject that was more likely in the case of
an author resident in Dublin than of one resident
in London. Besides, a reference to Wood and
an allusion to the Garter ribbon stamp it as
in part Swift’s work. The allusion is in stanza
three :

Some say there are courtiers of highest renown
Who steal the king’s gold and leave him but a crown ;
Some say there are peers and some parliament-men
Who meet once a year to rob courtiers again ;

But let them have their swing
To pillage the lung,

And get a blue ribbon instead of a string.

The reference to Wood is in the seventh and last
stanza :

1724-1725

191

What a pother is here with Woods and his brass*

Who would modestly make a few halfpennies pass ;

The patent is good, and the precedent’s old,

For Diomede changed his copper for gold ;

But if England despise
The new halfpennies,

More safely to rob on the road I advise.(19)

A reflection of the Wood agitation appeared
afterwards in A Simile on our Want of Silver, and
the only Way to remedy It. In the beginning of
this piece Swift tells how a sorcerer threw a
sable hue over the face of the moon, and how
people sought a counter-spell, and by driving
the hag to hell enabled the moon to display her
silver face again.

So, if my simile you minded.

Which I confess is too long-winded,

When late a feminine magician,

Join’d with a brazen politician,

Expos’d, to blind the nation’s eyes,

A parchment of prodigious size,

Conceard behind that ample screen.

There was no silver to be seen.

But to this parchment let the Drapier
Oppose his counter-charm of paper.

And ring Wood’s copper in our ears
So loud till all the nation hears ;

That sound will make the parchment shrivel,

And drive the conjurers to the Devil ;

And when the sky is grown serene.

Our silver will appear again.(20)

Although signed with the Drapier’s initials*
verses headed To the Citizens are hardly likely

192 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES

to have been written by Swift, of whom they are
not worthy in substance or execution, and the
printer of the original broadside is one who is
not known to have been ever employed by Swift.
The heading and imprint are :

To the Citizens.

Dublin, Printed by G. Needham, 1724,

It may also be concluded on the ground of
want of merit that there has been wrongly
attributed to Swift a ballad which was issued
as a broadside with the heading :

An Excellent New Song Upon the Declara-
tions of the several Corporations of the City
of Dublin ; against Woods’s Half-pence.
To the Tune of London is a fine Town.

In many respects it is similar to ballads
written then for the trade guilds on the peram-
bulation of the franchises.(21)

On the other hand, a piece written on the
release of Swift’s unfortunate printer from gat*!^
although not now attributed to Swift, seems
similar to his style. It is headed Harding’s
Resurrection from Hell upon Earth, and includes
these lines :

My letters all, that silent lay.

Are glad again to see the day ;

See from their cases how they rattle.

Like armies drawn in ranks of battle ;

The capitals, as being great,

Before the font advanc’d in state ;

1724-1725

193

The rest are common soldiers all,

Obedient to their general’s call ;

Italic, roman, and long primer,

Diff’ring like tory, whig, and trimmer.(22)

Apart from the Wood agitation, Swift touched
on an English political question in May 1725 ,
when the Order of the Bath was revived, the
piece being chiefly remarkable for its connexion
with Gulliver’s Travels, in the lines :

he who’ll leap over a stick for the king,

Is qualified best for a dog in a string.(23)

He wrote or inspired probably also in the
autumn of that year a piece entitled On Wisdom’s
Defeat in a Learned Debate which originated in
the rejection of a motion of Archbishop King
that the king should be thanked for his “ great
wisdom ” in ending the patent to Wood.

■Minerva has vow’d since the bishops do slight her,
Shou’d the reverend peers by chance ere invite her,
She’s resolv’d never more to be known by the Mitre.

The temporal lords, who voted against her.

She frankly forgives, as not having incens’d her.

For securing their pensions is best proof of their sense.
Sir.

At first putting the question, their lordships were for’t.
And his Grace’s wise notion did bravely support.

Till positive orders was whisper’d from court.

13

194 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES

So this they allege in their justification,

They vote for their bread in undoing the nation,

And the first law of nature is self-preservation.(24)

But besides these pieces Swift wrote in 1725
verses entitled The Birth of Manly Virtue which
possessed public interest. The Birth of Manly
Virtue, of which Lord Carteret is the subject, is
in itself a very striking eulogium, and it was
issued as a pamphlet with typographical advan-
tages that Swift’s pieces seldom enjoyed, the
publisher being one with whom Swift had never
any other connexion. The title-page reads thus :

The Birth of Manly Virtue. From Callimachus.
Inter Callimachi sat erit placuisse Libellos,
Et cecinisse modis, pure Poeta, tuis. Propert.
Gratior & pulchro veniens in corpore virtus.

Virg. Mn. V.

Dublin : Printed by and for George Grierson,
at the Two Bibles in Essex-Street. 1725.

It was followed by :

The Preface"

’Tis to be hoped the courteous Reader will
not be displeased with any remains of
so famed an author as Callimachus even
in a translation. His particular turn was
panegyric, and ’tis evident Propertius
believed he excelled in it, when he wished
to attain no higher honour in poetry than
the glory of imitating our author’s manner
with success, as appears from one of the

1724-1725

195

Lemmas prefixed to this translation, which
I shall beg leave to explain in the following
manner for the benefit of my fair readers :

Great bard of matchless art and ease.
Polite artificer of praise,

My vainest wish were but to shine
In courtly lays resembling thine.

The verses open with a prayer from a righteous
sage to Jove to make virtue “ the theme of human
sense,” and they continue :

Jove grants the prayer, gives Virtue birth.

And bids him bless and mend the earth.

Behold him blooming fresh and fair.

Now made — ye gods — a son and heir :

An heir, and, stranger yet to hear.

An heir, an orphan of a peer ;

But prodigies are wrought, to prove
Nothing impossible to Jove.

It cannot be doubted that these lines are by
Swift, but it is evident that he wished another
to gain the credit of having written the piece.
The mode of publication is the first indication,
and the next is the fact that the piece was not
included in his Works until long after his death.
It is probable that the person to whom Swift
wished Carteret to attribute the verses was
Delany, who was then seeking preferment, and
if so the typographical embellishment, which
was such as Delany was wont to employ, is
explained.(25)

’ Of verses of a personal kind those two years
produced an abundance. New Year’s Day 1724

196 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES

found Swift at Sheridan’s country house, Quilca,
with its owner, Stella and Mistress Dingley.
It was celebrated by Sheridan in verses addressed
to Swift, ridiculing his new-found love for Irish
workmen and for rock-gardening, (26) and by Swift
in verses addressed to Dingley accompanying
a gift of an empty sack in which she was to bring
her Quilca cares to Dublin. These were soon
followed by verses addressed to Ford for his
birthday which fell on January 31, dissuading
him from going to England on the ground that
in Dublin a small London could be found :

If you have London still at heart,

We’ll make a small one here by art ;

The difference is not much between
St. James’s Park and Stephen’s Green ;

And Dawson Street will serve as well
To lead you thither as Pall-Mall.

Nor want a passage through the palace,

To choke your sight, and raise your malice.

The Deanery-house may well be match’d,

Under correction, with the Thatch’d.

Nor shall I, when you hither com'e,

Demand a crown a quart for stum.

Then for a middle-aged charmer,

Stella may vie with your Mounthermer,

She’s now as handsome every bit,

And has a thousand times her wit.

The Dean and Sheridan, I hope,

Will half supply a Gay and Pope.

Corbet, though yet I know his worth not.

No doubt, will prove a good Arbuthnot.(27')

In March Stella’s birthday was not allowed to
pass without verses, although Swift was then sick

1724-1725

197

and in bed.(28) At the end of May, when Swift
was helping a new bishop to build a palace and
jokingly offered him the use of Laracor vicarage,
Sheridan found an opening for his True and Faith-
ful Inventory of the Goods belonging to Dr.
Swift.(29) During the end of the summer, when
the Wood agitation was at its height, Swift had
a prolonged attack of deafness, and Delany,
who received a reply which cleverly evaded the
issue raised by him, appeared in verse as a
mentor :

Methinks a friend at night should cheer you,

A friend that loves to see and hear you.

Why am I robb’d of that delight,

When you can be no loser by’t ?

Nay, when ’tis plain — for what is plainer ? —

That, if you heard, you’d be no gainer ?

For sure you are not yet to learn,

That hearing is not your concern.

Then be your doors no longer barr’d :

Your business, sir, is to be heard.(30)

In October, Sheridan was the recipient of lines
written at nine o’clock in the morning, which
describe the Deanery life and explain their
raison d’etre in a postscriptal invitation to
dinner.(31)

In the year 1725, when March came, the annual
tribute to Stella was not forgotten. Through it
there runs a note of sadness, foreshadowing the
parting that was to come in a few years,
and the ground is explained in A Receipt to
restore Stella’s Youth, which tells of wasted

198 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES

flesh and prescribes a prolonged summer sojourn
at Quilca.

’Tis just the case ; for you have fasted
So long, till all your flesh is wasted,

And must against the warmer days
Be sent to Quilca down to graze,

Where mirth, and exercise, and air.

Will soon your appetite repair ;

The nutriment will from within
Round all your body, plump your skin,

Will agitate the lazy flood,

And fill your veins with sprightly blood ;<

Nor flesh nor blood will be the same,

Nor aught of Stella but the name :

For what was ever understood,

By humankind, but flesh and blood ?

And if your flesh and blood be new,

YouTl be no more the former you ;

But for a blooming nymph will pass.

Just fifteen, coming summer’s grass.

Your jetty locks with garlands crown’d,

While all the squires for nine miles round.
Attended by a brace of curs,

With jockey boots and silver spurs.

No less than justices o’ quorum.

Their cow-boys bearing cloaks before ’em.

Shall leave deciding broken pates,

To kiss your steps at Quilca gates. ( 32 )

Thither in April Stella went, accompanied not
only by Dingley but also by Swift himself, an
arrangement of which he had given no hint in
A Receipt, and of their experiences the lines
headed To Quilca, and The Blessings and Plagues
of a Country Life, give a sample.(33)

1724-1725

199

Besides the foregoing pieces Swift wrote also
probably early in 1724 with the help of Ford
a piece entitled The Quidnunckis, which has
been hitherto attributed to Gay. There are
lines in it that surely could have come into the
brain of none but the author of Gulliver :

All at a stand ? You see great changes ?

Ah, sir ! you never saw the Ganges :

There dwells the nation of Quidnunckis,

So Monomotapa calls monkeys :

On either bank, from bough to bough,

They meet and chat as we may now ;

Whispers go round, they grin, they shrug.

They bow, they snarl, they scratch, they hug ;

And, just as chance or whim provoke them,

They either bite their friends or stroke them.(34)

An Irish origin for the notice taken of those
London newsmongers is indicated also by another
piece entitled A Letter from the Quidnuncs at
St. James’s Coffee-House and the Mall London
to their Brethren at Lucas’s Coffee-House in
Dublin. By -Jiis own admission there are also
attributable to Swift in 1724 or 1725 two occa-
sional pieces On Dreams, and A Quiet Life and
A Good Name, (35) as well as a host of Riddles.
Although Pope despised riddles, Swift told him
that he was strongly tempted to send a parcel
“ to be printed by themselves and make a nine-
penny job for the printer,” and although speaking
of them in a laughing way, lets out that he
considered his own superior to those written by
others.(36) In Orrery’s estimation Swift com-

200 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES

posing riddles was a case of Titian painting
sign-boards, but at the same time it was Orrery’s
opinion that Swift excelled in making them, not
only in closeness of thought but also in smoothness
and finish.(37)

The war of verse with Smedley began in the
early months of 1724. At that time Smedley
had been promoted from the deanery of Killala
to that of Clogher by Carteret’s predecessor in the
office of lord-lieutenant, the second Duke of
Grafton, and in the hope of obtaining also a
benefice * with a comfortable house Smedley
addressed lines to Grafton thanking him for his
promotion and asking him to add to it a benefice
with a residence. These verses, which were
published as a broadside, were an imitation of
Swift’s Epistle to Oxford and opened with the
lines :

It was, my lord, the dexterous shift
Of t’other Jonathan, viz. Swift,

But now St. Patrick’s saucy dean,

With silver verge, and surplice clean,

Of Oxford, or of Ormond’s gratae.

In looser rhyme to beg a place.

A place he got, yclept a stall.

And eke a thousand pound withal,

And were he less a witty writer,

He might as well have got a mitre.

The opportunity was one Swift could not
resist, and The Duke’s Answer was indited by
him and appeared also as a broadside :

Dear Smed, I read thy brilliant lines,

Where wit in all its glory shines ;

1724-1725

201

Where compliments, with all their pride.

Are by their numbers dignified :

I hope to make you yet as clean
As that same Viz, St. Patrick’s dean.(38)

Smedley bided his time, and when Swift’s
attacks on Wood began to weaken, and his
under spur-leathers were more and more taking
his place, he launched out as a broadside A
Satyr, beginning :

Most Reverend Dean, pray cease to write.

Nor longer dwell on things so trite.

Whereupon Swift returned the compliment with
A Letter from D. S — t to D. S — v,
beginning :

Dear Dean, if ere again you write.

Beware of subjects you call trite.(39)

In addition Swift’s henchman, the locksmith,
published as broadsides two pieces. The first
was headed :

Trinity Cclledge Vindicated. Or a short
Defence of The Reverend Dean Swift.
By S. 0— s, L.S.

and the second —

A Scourge For the Author of the Satyr,
Gibing on Trinity College, and on the
Reverend Dean Swift, Hibernia’s Apollo ;
Presented To the Reverend Dean Smedley,
with Remarks on his Petition to the
Duke of G — ft — n. Written by S. 0. L.S.

202 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES

A piece headed Satyr Satiris’d also appeared.
To these a hero called Eyre responded with
Advice from Fairy-Land, and that war ended.

At the same time Ambrose Philips was being
held up to ridicule by Swift and others. The
opportunity was afforded by a poem which
Philips addressed to Carteret’s eldest daughter,
and the idea seems to have emanated from a
parody of one of Philips’s namby-pamby effusions
which had come from England. The first piece
that appeared on the Poem to Miss Carteret was
headed A Lady’s Answer to Mr. Ambrose Philips’s
Poem : it was followed by A New Poem ascrib’d
to the Lady who wrote An Answer to Mr. Philips’s

Poem on Miss C t, and by verses included in

Swift’s Works headed On Rover, a Lady’s
Spaniel.(40) According to Smedley, the piece On
Rover was designed to throw ridicule on Primate
Boulter, whose wife had a dog of the name;
but however that may have been, it has a
connexion with the other pieces that, considering
their nature, is to be regretted, and read in con-
junction with them, it leaves a very disagreeable
taste. Another piece aimed at Philips, and
published in Dublin about that time, A Christmas
Box for Namby Pamby, or A Second Part to the
same Tune, recalls in its intensity many of
Swift’s pieces.(41)

The flood of satirical verse with which Tighe
was overwhelmed was also beginning to rise
at that time. His offence was reporting to the
government Sheridan’s unhappy choice of the
words ‘ Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’

1724-1725

203

as a text for his sermon on the anniversary of
George the First’s accession. As Swift says, the
text was only made use of as an opportunity to
harm Sheridan and no doubt also to hurt through
him Swift. Certainly his enemy did not fail
in that aim. How deeply Swift felt the injury
done to his friend is shown by the virulence of
his invective. In three pieces, which he pub-
lished immediately, the attack is open and direct :
no one could mistake that Tighe was the object,
“ a man of no large dimensions of body or
mind,” (42) and the satire is intense, even the
old London scandal being raked up and placed in
the forefront :

To the Honorable Mr. D. T. Great Pattern
of Piety, Charity, Learning, Humanity,
good Nature, .Wisdom, good Breeding,
Affability, and one most eminently dis-
tinguished for his Conjugal Affection.(43)

Finally, the unfortunate James Arbuekle, who
had some infirmity that made the use of crutches
necessary, was overwhelmed in a bitter piece
that did not spare him for his infirmity, and is
represented as told by Clio :

Sir, Phoebus made a declaration,

’Gainst all lame members in the nation ;

Nor does he ever think that those
Should run in rhyme who limp in prose.(44)

NOTES

1. Appendix XI.

2. The Obligations of an English Army to their
Kang, and Constitution, in Church and State : in a

204 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES

Sermon Preach’d to Several Commanders and others of
His Majesty’s Forces, at St. James’s Church, West-
minster, Octob. 30, 1716, being the Birth-Day of the
Prince. By Jonathan Smedley, A.M., Rector of Ring-
currane and Chaplain to His Majesty’s Regiment,
Commanded by the Honourable Brigadier Stanwix.
Dedicated to His Royal Highness, London 1716.

3. Swift’s Corr., ii. 351.

4. “ Fix’d on a Church Door.” Poems on Several
Occasions, London 1721, p. 154.

5. An Ode to the Right Honourable the Earl of
Cadogan and The Ode-Maker : A Burlesque on the
Dean of Killala’s Ode to the Right Honourable the Earl
of Cadogan. These were both published in pamphlet
form in 1719, and the whole of the Ode and part of the
Burlesque appear in Smedley’s Poems (op. cit.).

6. Journal to Stella, 1710, October 26, November 2 ;
1711, January 7, 13, August 24, September 14.

7. The piece appeared as a broadside signed Punch
sum sociis (Wilde, op. cit., p. 171). It was included in
Swift’s Works by Sir Walter Scott. He was inclined
to attribute it to Sheridan, but Sheridan was hostile
to the puppet-show, and internal evidence indicates
that it is by Swift. Amongst references to the pro-
ceedings in the Irish parliament In the autumn
of 1723, there is one to a disputed election in county
Westmeath, the representation of which George Roch-
fort lost on a division in the House of Commons by
one vote.

8. The Ballad was included in Swift’s Works by
Nichols in 1776. It appeared also in Whartoniana in
1727.

9. The Political State of Great Britain.

10. It was included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner in
1762.

11. These pieces were included in Swift’s Works by

1724-1725 205

Sir Walter Scott. The second appeared in Whartoniana
in 1727.

12. The Epigram was included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1746.

13. The piece appears in the Miscellanies of 1727.

14. The Judges in Ireland, ii. 103.

15. The ballad was included in Swift’s Works by Sir
Walter Scott.

16. Both pieces w r ere included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1735.

17. These were also included in 1735.

18. This was also included by Faulkner, but in 1746.

19. Appendix XII.

20. It was included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner in
1735.

21. These pieces were included first in Swift’s Works
by Sir Walter Scott. For songs on the perambulation
of the franchises see Appendix XIII.

22. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1751. See Appendix XIV.

23. It was included in Swift’s Works by Sir Walter
Scott.

24. These lines appeared as a broadside. They had
as a maxim Quid est sapientia semper idem velle, atq. idem
nolle , and were sighted Rose Common, Shameless Woman.
The imprint was — Dublin : Printed by Sarah Harding
on the Blind-Key 1725. By an order of the House of
Lords, Mrs. Harding was taken into custody and the
broadside was ordered to be burned. This order gave
rise to another piece entitled — The Last Speech of
Wisdom’s Defeat, &c, : A Scandalous Libel : Burnt
the Second Day of October 1725 by the Common
Hangman.

25. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Nichols in 1776. It had been reprinted previously by
Cogan in 1752. Its originality was noticed in A Poem

206 THE DRAPIER, HIS FRIENDS AND FOES

inscrib’d to the Author of the Birth of Manly Virtue,
which was published as a broadside in the same year.

26. A New Year’s Gift for the Dean of St. Patrick’s :
Given him at Quilca.

27. The first piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Hawkesworth in 1765 and the second by Faulkner in
1762. Cf. the Journal to Stella, January 31, 1711.

28. “ Written on the day of her birth, but not on the
subject, when I was sick in bed.” The lines were
first included in Swift’s Works by Hawkesworth in
1765.

29. It was originally published as a broadside. It
was included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner in 1762, and
had been previously reprinted in the Drapier’s Miscellany
in 1733 and by Cogan in 1752.

30. The lines were included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1735.

31. They owe their inclusion to Sir Walter Scott.

32. The first piece appears in The Miscellanies of
1727 ; the second was published by Faulkner in 1735.

33. The first was also published first by Faulkner in
1735.

34. The piece appeared as a broadside, entitled A
Poem Address’d to the Quidnunc’s, at St. James’s Coffee-
House London. Occasion’d by the Death of the Duke
of Orleans. Printed in the Year, 1724.

35. The one appears in the Miscellanies of 1727 ; the
other was first published by Faulkner in 1735.

36. Swift’s Corr., iii. 372.

37. Op. eit., p. 128. Of one of the riddles, Delany says
(op. cit., p. 221), that Swift has made it a. piece truly
historical and learned, with as many fine and strong
strokes of satire as in any picture of Hogarth’s, and
expresses regret that the subject was not more agreeable
and the colouring less strong.

38. The Answer was included in Swift’s Works by

CHAPTER IX

WITH POPE

Ann. Dom. 1726-1727. Aet. suae 58-60

“ I came here to see my old friends,” writes Swift
in the summer of 1726 from London, “ and upon
some business I had with two of them.”(l)
The friends were the other members of the
Scriblerus Club — Pope, Gay and Arbuthnot, and
the son of Swift’s hero Lord Treasurer Oxford,
and the business was to consult Pope as to the
publication of Gulliver’s Travels, and to ascertain
from the second Earl of Oxford what material
was available for an account of his father’s
administration. By others, various motives for
the visit have been assigned : Swift’s ambition
to engage again in politics, his desire to obtain
preferment in England, his shrinking from being
a spectator of Stella’s dying moments, and his
wish to be absent from Dublin when Cadenus
and Vanessa was published.

But above and beyond all else was Swift’s
longing to see Pope again. The hold which
Pope had on Swift’s affections is not a little
remarkable. Swift’s friendship with Pope existed
for less than a year before Swift left England,
and during the twelve years that Swift had been
in Ireland their correspondence had been, until

208

1726-1727

209

the last year, very limited and interrupted. In
the years 1715 and 1716 they had exchanged
letters ; then after a silence of seven years they
again wrote to each other in 1723 ; and they did
not begin until two years later, in the autumn of
1725, to correspond with frequency. But Swift
was enthusiastic in his admiration of Pope’s
writings, and from a study of his works came to
love the man.

Within three days of his arrival in London,
which was announced in the London press as
having taken place on March 19, 1726,(2) Swift
was entertaining Pope, and after some weeks he
became Pope’s guest at Twickenham and re-
mained with him until he returned to Ireland,
towards the end of August. During his stay in
England Swift wrote that he was “ in no sedentary
way for speculation of any kind,” and that he
had been little more than “ a witness of any
pleasantries ” that might have reached the
public, (3) but the small share that he admits
had no little part in the success of at least one
piece written b.y Gay, who was constantly with
him and Pope. It was during a riding tour that
the three friends took in the summer that the
ballad of Molly Mog, which became the furor
in London, was written, and in that ballad the
peculiar turn of thought of Swift is very visible
and essential to the perfection of the whole.

Swift’s visit to London in the next year, 1727,
was said by Swift, writing at the time, to have been
undertaken partly for the advantage of Ireland,
partly on account of his health, partly on business
14

210

WITH POPE

of importance to himself, and partly to see his
friends.(4) Undoubtedly he had in his mind
thoughts of influencing the Irish government
through Pulteney’s opposition, of improving his
health for which he proposed to go to France, and
of obtaining material for an account of Lord
Oxford’s administration which he had failed to
obtain in the previous year. But the fact that
he was writing to Archbishop King may have
affected the order of the reasons, and it is probable
that Pope was again the loadstone. It was to
Pope’s house that he went first, and it was with
him that he spent almost the entire time that his
visit lasted. The visit was of the same duration,
six months, as that of the previous year. He left
Ireland a month later, early in April, and arrived
in about ten days at Twickenham. Thence he
went up for a few days to London, where his
arrival was thus announced in Mist’s Weekly
Journal for May 6, 1727 :

Last week Dr. Jonathan Swift arrived here
from Dublin where his absence is as much
regretted, as his presence here is pleasing
to the learned and ingenious, who will have
the opportunity of his entertaining con-
versation.

During his stay with Pope in the preceding
year the project of a joint Miscellany had been
concerted, and during Swift’s absence in Ireland
the first two volumes, which are wholly prose,
were put through the press. One of Swift’s
first occupations after coming to England for

1726-1727

211

the second time was to write with Pope a preface,
which bears the date May 27, 1727, and is signed
by them both. It dwells at great length on the
injury done them by the booksellers, amongst
whom Edmund Curll is mentioned by name, in
attaching their names to whole volumes of mean
productions, which they never saw or heard of
until the volumes appeared, and it is no less
insistent on the invidious position in which
they had been placed by the publication, without
their authority, of pieces which they had written
but which they would have wished to suppress.
In some cases they alleged that pieces in which
they had a hand had been published in an
intolerably imperfect form, or loaded with
spurious additions, even to the insertion in satires
of the names of men for whom they had esteem
and respect. But they admitted that they had
indulged respectively in misplaced raillery on
two persons, Addison and Vanbrugh ; by mutual
agreement Pope wished what he had said of
Addison, and Swift wished what he had said of
Vanbrugh unsaid. A month later, on June 24,
the publication of the volumes was thus an-
nounced in The Country Gentleman :

This Day is published. Miscellanies. In
Two Volumes. By the Rev. Dr. Swift,
Alexander Pope, Esq; &c. Printed for
Benj. Motte at the Middle Temple Gate,
Fleet-street.

While in Ireland, in December 1726,(5) Swift
had sent Pope a number of his verses, desiring

212

WITH POPE

him to burn, blot out and correct as he thought
fit, and mentions that it was on Pope’s suggestion
that their respective pieces were not kept separate
but mixed, a hotch-pot which was eventually
intensified by the inclusion of pieces by Gay and
Arbuthnot. Later on, in February 1727,(6)
when telling Swift that the last volume of the
Miscellanies was to consist wholly of verse, Pope
said that he would choose to print none but such
as had some peculiarity to distinguish it from the
work of others. His object was evidently to
draw pieces from Swift that he suspected Swift
was reserving, but nothing more transpired until
they were together at Twickenham in the summer.
Then Swift is found writing to Sheridan to send
him a copy of his piece On Stella collecting his
Verse, with the important addendum that he
did not want the poem “ to print it entire, but
some passages out of it, if they deserve it, to
lengthen the volume.” (7)

In the result not only did the whole of that
piece appear, but also, with one exception, all
the verses that Swift is known t6 have written
to Stella, even those written for her birthday in
that year. It might excite surprise at any time
that Swift could have borne the publication of
these verses, but especially so when he believed
her to be dying and was writing to Sheridan in an
agony of affliction. The only explanation seems
to be that Swift had delivered himself in his
infatuation for Pope completely into his hands.
Pope is recorded to have said that he wished the
verses to Stella had never been written, (8)

1726-1727

213

but none the less he had the power to prevent
their inclusion in the Miscellanies and did not use
it. It may therefore be assumed that it was due
to him that the volume contained the verses to
Stella and Cadenus and Vanessa, from association
with which Swift had not many years before
desired to be spared.

In a letter written to the publisher of the
Miscellanies, Motte, in February 1728,(9) Swift
says that Pope had rejected several pieces that
he had sent him, two on the ground that they
were merely a translation, which Swift denied,
and with the letter Swift returned these and sent
others, but gave a strict injunction that they were
not to be included in the volume unless approved
by Pope and Gay. But they cannot have been
in time, for in the issue of The Daily Courani for
March 6, 1728, the following advertisement
appears :

To-morrow will be Published, Miscellanies.
The Last Volume. By the Reverend Dr.
Swift, Alexander Pope, Esq; &c, consisting
of several Copies of Verses, most of them
never before printed. To which is pre-
fixed, A Discourse of the Profund, or the
Art of Sinking in Poetry. Printed for
Benj. Motte, at the Middle Temple Gate
in Fleet-street.

Besides the verses to Stella and Cadenus and
Vanessa, the volume included the thirteen pieces
printed in the Miscellanies of 1711, the Imitations
of Horace’s Quinque dies and Hoc erat, The South

214

WITH POPE

Sea, the Ballad on Blueskin, Prometheus,
Corinna, Phyllis or The Progress of Love, The
Progress of Poetry and of Beauty, a riddle, The
Epilogue for the Play for the Benefit of the
Weavers, the Epitaph (without the elegy) on
Demar, and On Dreams.

His connection with Pope brought upon Swift
a load of misrepresentation and invective. By
Curll they were hashed up together in a rival
publication to the Miscellanies entitled Mis-
cellanea, In Two Volumes. In it Swift was
represented as to his authentic pieces by Cadenus
and Vanessa, The Country Life, The Duke of
Grafton’s Answer, and answers to riddles made
by Vanessa and Delany, and he was also made
responsible for a piece entitled The Broken Mug.
By Smedley he was joined with Pope in a dis-
gusting production entitled :

The Metamorphosis : A Poem. Shewing
the Change of Scriblerus into Snarlerus :
or, The Canine Appetite : Demonstrated
in the Persons of P-pe and Sw-t.(lO)

In Ralph’s Sawney (11) Swift figures amongst
Pope’s companions thus :

Shameless, a gay, lewd swearing priest was one.
Who laugh’d at holy worship and despis’d
The duties of his place, who lov’d the bowl
Bright-sparkling, the delicious fair, the mad
Luxurious scenes of life ; who left his pray’rs.

His Church, his God, to holy drudges, and

1726-1727

215

Let loose his passion for the world, who veil’d
Revenge in smiles, and to indulge his jest
Lampoon’d his friend ; his studies all were light
And humorous, oft obscene and undelicate.

In a ballad to the tune of The Soldier and the
Sailor (12) he is satirized with Pulteney, Pope and
Gay :

These four in strict alliance
Most bravely bid defiance
To virtue, sense and science,

And who but needs must praise ’em.

And in a number of prose pamphlets he is
coupled with Pope as the basest of humail
kind. (13)

Two of Swift’s pieces in those years have special
connexion with his residence in Pope’s house.
They are quatrains of lines of eight and six sylla-
bles, and are very polished compositions. The
first, Advice to the Grub-street Verse Writers,
which is dated 1726, refers to Pope’s habit of
writing on the margins of paper that had been
already used, and in it the Grub Street writers
are advised to lend him their printed poems in
order that something of value may be substituted
for their drivel, and then —

When Pope has fill’d the margins round,

Why then recal your loan ;

Sell them to Curll for fifty pound.

And swear they are your own.

The other piece. To Mr. Pope while he was
writing the Dunciad, which is dated 1727, refers

216

WITIf POPE

to an attack of deafness which came upon Swift
at the close of his second visit, and claims for him
some share in the composition of The Dunciad ,
on the ground that if it had not been for his
infirmity, Pope would have conversed with him
and not written a line :

Of Sherlock, thus, for preaching fam’d,

The sexton reason’d well ;

And justly half the merit claim’d.

Because he rang the bell.

Another very polished piece for which Swift’s
residence at Twickenham was responsible is
one To Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough,
which has been compared by Forster to a picture
by Reynolds or Hogarth. That this piece was
completed in 1726, the year affixed to it, is
evident from the fact that in a letter to Swift in
that year Peterborough signs himself “ Tar, ”(14)
in allusion to Swift’s mention of him in the
capacity of a seaman :

Shines in all climates like a star ;

In senates bold, and fierce in war,

A land commander, and a tdr :

but the verses are chiefly occupied with Peter-
borough’s activities in the days of Oxford’s
ministry, and were possibly designed then. In
them will be found allusion to what Stella was
told at that time, that Peterborough outrid the
post, and left the road strewn with his followers :

So wonderful his expedition.

When you have not the least suspicion

He’s with you like an apparition.(15)

1726-|727 217

In addition to these A Pastoral Dialogue written
upon the news of the king’s death in June 1727,
saw the light at Twickenham. By means of
a conversation between Mrs. Howard’s house.
Marble Hill, and the royal lodge at Richmond,
this piece tells of Swift’s intercourse with Queen
Caroline as Princess of Wales, and her court, in
which, according to his sapient cousin. Swift
displayed “ exalted force of spirit.” In the
Dialogue Richmond Lodge represents the relations
between the Princess and Swift thus :

Here wont the Dean, when he’s to seek.

To spunge a breakfast once a-week ;

To cry the bread was stale, and mutter
Complaints against the royal butter.

But now I fear it will be said.

No butter sticks upon his bread.

We soon shall find him full of spleen.

For want of tattling to the queen,

Stunning her royal ears with talking.

His reverence and her highness walking.(16)

For Mrs. Howard Swift is said to have written
A Character of Sir Robert Walpole, which from
its virulence was probably handed rather than
sent to her :

With favour and fortune fastidiously blest,

He’s loud in his laugh and he’s coarse in his jest ;
Of favour and fortune, unmerited, vain,

A sharper in trifles, a dupe in the main ;

Achieving of nothing, still promising wonders
By dint of experience improving in blunders ;

218

WITH POPE

Oppressing true merit, exalting the base.

And selling his country to purchase his place ;

A jobber of stocks, by retailing false news,

A prater at court in the style of the stews,

Of virtue and worth by profession a jiber,

Of juries and senates the bully and briber,

Though I name not the wretch, you all know whom I
mean,

’Tis the cur-dog of Britain and spaniel of Spain.(17)

To Swift’s English visits are also probably to
be attributed several other pieces. One of these
is a criticism of Young’s poem The Love of Fame,
or The Universal Passion, in which Swift points
out that England ought to be blessed if she has
rulers such as Young paints, but that she is
cursed if she has all the vices that Young fastens
on her :

If you affirm the present age
Deserves your satire’s keenest rage ;

If that same universal passion
With every vice hath fill’d the nation :

If virtue dares not venture down
A single step below the crown :

If clergymen, to show their wit,

Praise classics more than holy writ :

If bankrupts, when they are undone,

Into the senate house can run,

And sell their votes at such a rate.

As will retrieve a lost estate.

Another is a ballad on Clever Tom Clinch
going to be Hanged, in which Swift recalls the
Ballad on Blueskin :

1726-1727

219

My honest friend Wild — may he long hold his place —
He lengthen’d my life with a whole year of grace.

Take courage, dear comrades, and be not afraid.

Nor slip this occasion to follow your trade ;

My conscience is clear, and my spirits are calm.

And thus I go off, without pray’r-book or psalm ;

Then follow the practice of clever Tom Clinch,

Who hung like a hero, and never would flinch.

A third was Bouts Rimes, in which the keyword
seems to have been Momentilla of The Rape of
the Lock :

Dan Pope consigns Belinda’s watch
To the fair sylphid Momentilla,

And thus I offer up my catch

To the snow-white hands of Domitilla.

A fourth was The Dog and the Thief, which is
aimed at the class of politicians now known as
carpet-baggers :

The stockjobber thus from Change-alley goes down.
And tips you, the freeman, a wink ;

Let me have but your vote to serve for the town.

And here is a guinea to drink.

Says the freeman, your guinea to-night would be spent ;

Your offers of bribery cease :

I’ll vote for my landlord to whom I pay rent.

Or else I may forfeit my lease.

A fifth is The Elephant, or The Parliament-
Man, written many years since and taken from
Coke’s Institutes, which is concerned with the

220

WITH POPE

corruption in parliament. It points out that
Coke’s simile holds no longer good :

Now men of parliament, God knows,

Are more like elephants of shows ;

Whose docile memory and sense
Are turn’d to trick, to gather pence
To get their master half a crown.

They spread the flag or lay it down
Those who bore bulwarks on their backs,

And guarded nations from attacks,

Now practise every pliant gesture.

Opening their trunk for every tester.( 18 )

One of the short sojourns that he made in
London then bears the odium of A Love Poem
from a Physician to his Mistress.(19) It comes
within the category of the pieces that made
Taine say Swift’s mind clung to vileness, and
although it is not the case, as Delany asserted,
that Swift’s choice of such subjects began in
later life after his residence in Pope’s house, it
bears out his observation to the extent that it
shows residence with Pope gave a stimulus to
their selection.(20) Besides these pieces Swift
acknowledged four sets of lines written while in
England on the windows of inns, to which others
have been added.(21)

Two pieces in these years are concerned with
the increasing supremacy of the English interest
in the direction of Irish affairs. In the first of
these, An Ode to Ireland, which is a paraphrase
of Horace’s 0 navis, the picture is drawn of a
ship which had lost the oars that guided it on

1726-1727

221

either side and whose mast was about to crack
before the eastern wind, the allusion being to the
loss as primate of Lindsay and as chancellor of
Midleton and to the decline of Archbishop King :

Lost are thy oars that us’d thy course to guide.
Like faithful counsellors, on either side.

Thy mast, which like some aged patriot stood,

The single pillar for his country's good,

To lead thee, as a staff directs the blind,

Behold it cracks by yon rough eastern wind ;

Your cable’s burst, and you must quickly feel.

The waves impetuous entering at your keel.

The case of the ship is said to be like a writer
in a popular cause : his arguments prevail while
there is calm, but before power the pamphlet
flutters into rags, and the author, who has put
his trust in the people, finds himself doomed to
death. No power will now help the ship. When
her sides are broken, it will not avail that her
descent was from the British oak. Such was
Ireland’s claim ; her matchless sons, whose
valour was proved in twenty long campaigns in
France, were descended from the British line,
but in saving Britain’s rights they lost their own.
Unthinking fools delight in a ball on the king’s
birthday, but t forget that their country is en-
slaved. The poet calls on Ireland not to change
her course with every gust, and concludes with
these fines :

Weary and sea-sick when in thee confin’d,

Now for thy safety cares distract my mind ;

As those who long have stood the storms of state
Retire, yet still bemoan their country’s fate.

222

WITH POPE

Beware, and when you hear the surges roar,
Avoid the rocks on Britain’s angry shore ;

They lie, alas ! too easy to be found ;

For thee alone they lie the island round.

The second of the pieces is entitled Verses
on the Sudden Drying-up of St. Patrick’s Well
near Trinity College, Dublin. It represents St.
Patrick telling of the joy with which he came to
Ireland, of her ancient glories, and of her conquest
by Britain, and bemoaning the infidelity, vice
and slavery that he now sees in her. In vain he
drove the serpent from within her, and has sent
omens to warn her swains :

I sent the magpie from the British soil.

With restless beak thy blooming fruit to spoil ;

To din thine ears with unharmonious clack,

And haunt the holy walls in white and black.

What else are those thou seest in bishop’s gear,
Who crop the nurseries of learning here ;

Aspiring, greedy, full of senseless prate,

Devour the church, and chatter to the state ?

As you grew more degenerate and base,

I sent you millions of the croaking race ;

Emblems of insects vile, who spread their spawn
Through all thy land, in armour, fur, and lawn ;

A nauseous brood, that fills your senate walls.

And in the chambers of your viceroy crawls.

What has become of the well that bore his
name, asks the Saint ? By drinking from it the
students raised their wits and parts, but now
they must make their court to foreign prelates
and be content with minor employments. Worse

1726-1727

223

times are coming, and for no Hibernian shall
a blade of grass or an ear of corn arise. All
Ireland’s treasure will be carried off by the
absentee landowners :

Who to yon ravenous isle thy treasures bear.

And waste in luxury thy harvest there ;

For pride and ignorance a proverb grown.

The jest of wits, and to the court unknown.

In conclusion, as Ireland will not defy her
foes, the Saint exclaims :

I scorn thy spurious and degenerate line.

And from this hour my patronage resign.(22)

Of occasional pieces there are in those years
three. The first is On Censure. It is an evil
which admits of no cure, says the poet. Innocence
is no support in scandal’s court ; all who are
inferior join in dragging down the victim, and the
rest are apathetic and shield themselves under
the plea that appearances are against him. Why
do people give weight to what others say ?

For let mankind discharge their tongues
In venom, till they burst their lungs,

Their utmost malice cannot make
Your head, or tooth, or finger ache ;

Nor spoil your shape, distort your face.

Or put one feature out of place ;

Nor will you find your fortune sink
By what they speak or what they think ;

Nor can ten hundred thousand lies
Make you less virtuous, learn’d or wise.

The most effectual way to baulk
Their malice, is — to let them talk.

224

WITH POPE

The next piece is called Desire and Possession.
It pictures them as two brothers running in a
race. Desire flies on in pursuit of new objects ;
Possession toils after picking up what his brother
despises. At last Desire is about to seize the
crown which Fortune holds out to him, but she
strikes him with her sceptre and he sinks into
a chasm, and Possession sinks under the weight
of the load that he has accumulated :

And, as he now expiring lay,

Flocks ev’ry ominous bird of prey ;

The raven, vulture, owl and kite,

At once upon his carcase light,

And strip his hide, and pick his bones,
Regardless of his dying groans.

The third piece is entitled The Furniture of a
Woman’s Mind. It displays Swift’s gift of in-
tensity, but was superseded by The Journal of
a Modern Lady, for which it appears to have been
a study. Of it there was both an Irish and an
English version. The former ended :

0 yes ! if any man can find -
More virtues in a woman’s mind,

Let them be sent to Mrs. Harding ;

She’ll pay the charges to a farthing ;

Take notice, she has my commission
To add them in the next edition ;

They may outsell a better thing ;

So, holloo, hoys ; God save the king !

The latter said :

Let them be sent to Bickerstaffe,

He pays full price and not by half.(23)

1726—1727

225

Early in 1726 Swift indited probably another
ballad in imitation of The Song of the Cut-
purse. It was entitled An Excellent New Song,
To a good old Tune, and was occasioned by an
outcry in regard to a sermon preached by one of
Swift’s prebendaries, Edward Synge, afterwards
a member of the Irish episcopal bench, in which
he expressed views on toleration that no one else
could understand and that he himself tried to
make clear in ninety pages of print :

Most are at a loss to find out his true meaning,

Whilst others of some dark design are complaining,
Some think he’s for Martin,

Some for Jack his heart in,

But most do agree he’s for Peter, for certain :

O S — ge, who won’t think thou wert bred at St.
Germains,

Who reads what opinions you’ve broach’d in your
sermons.

Some say it is new, some say what is stranger ;

That all you have said is taken from Bangor :

Then looks it not oddly
T’extract from Ben Hoadly,

A scheme that seems Popish to all that are godly :

O S — nge, thou had’st better been hang’d in a rope,
Than thus to turn stickler for Rome and the Pope.(24)

Amongst Swift’s personal pieces in those years
the annual tribute to Stella is not forthcoming for
March 1726. As at the time Swift was on the
road to London it was possibly not written, but
lines on the birthday of Rebecca Dingley, which
15

226

WITH POPE

was on November 8, take their place. In them, ,
as in other pieces, she is represented as a creature
of care, and lover of gossip.

Long may she live, and help her friends
Whene’er it suits her private ends ;

Domestic business never mind
Till coffee has her stomach lin’d ;

But, when her breakfast gives her courage,

Then think on Stella’s chicken porridge :

I mean when Tiger has been serv’d,

Or else poor Stella may be starv’d,

May Bee have many an evening nap,

With Tiger slabbering in her lap ;

But always take a special care
She does not overset the chair :

Still be she curious, never hearken
To any speech, but Tiger’s barking ;

And when she’s in another scene,

Stella long dead, but first the Dean,

May fortune and her coffee get her
Companions that will please her better,

Whole afternoons will sit beside her.

Nor for neglects or blunders chide her.

Another delightful piece concerning her and
Swift’s housekeeper was probably also written
at that time :

Dingley and Brent,

Wherever they went.

Ne’er minded a word that was spoken ;

Whatever was said.

They ne’er troubled their head,

But laugh’d at their own silly joking ; (25)

1726—1727

227

and followed at the close of the following March
by an elegy on her lap-dog which had been men-
tioned in her birthday lines.(26)

In that same month of March 1727, Stella’s
birthday was celebrated for the last time* Her
condition was causing unceasing anxiety and
happiness could be found but in thoughts of the
past :

From not the gravest of divines
Accept for once some serious lines.

Although we now can form no more
Long schemes of life, as heretofore ;

Yet you, while time is running fast,

Can look with joy on what is past.

After telling of her life of unselfish devotion to
him, he ends with what hereafter it must have
been a happiness to him to recall as his last words
to her in verse :

Believe me, Stella, when you show
That true contempt for things below,

Nor prize your life for other ends
Than merely to oblige your friends ;

Your former actions claim their part.

And join to fortify your heart.

For Virtue, in her daily race.

Like Janus, bears a double face ;

Looks back with joy where she has gone.

And therefore goes with courage on ;

She at your sickly couch will wait.

And guide you to a better state.

Oh 1 then, whatever Heaven intends.

Take pity on your pitying friends ;

228

WITH POPE

Nor let your ills affect your mind.

To fancy they can be unkind.

Me, surely me, you ought to spare,

Who gladly would your suff’rings share ;

Or give my scrap of life to you,

And think it far beneath your due ;

You, to whose care so oft I owe
That I’m alive to tell you so.(27)

During Swift’s absences in England, Sheridan
devoted himself to Stella and kept Swift informed
of her condition. He tried to cheer him as well
as the patient : in 1726 he sent Swift, while in
London, verses comparing Swift’s life there with
his own in Dublin ; in 1727 he sent Swift while in
Ireland verses inviting him to join with Stella
and Dingley in visiting a house that he had taken
in the neighbourhood of Dublin at Rathfarnham,
and in the same year he sent Swift verses descrip-
tive of Swift’s habits and environment when he
came to Sheridan’s house, which underwent
merciless revision probably by Swift.(28)

The attribution to Swift of two pieces entitled
respectively A Young Lady’s Complaint for the
Stay of Dean Swift in England and The Logicians
Refuted is at least doubtful. In the first case,
extraordinary as he was, he would hardly have
penned a suggestion that Vanessa’s death was
due to his neglect, and the piece was published
as a broadside by Faulkner, who had then no
connection with Swift ; and in the second case
the piece is claimed as an imitation of Swift’s
style by Goldsmith.(29)

1726-1727

229

NOTES

1. Swift’s Corr., iii. 321.

2. The Weekly Journal of March 26.

3. Swift’s Corr., iii. 313.

4. Ibid., p. 391.

5. Ibid., p. 372.

6. Ibid., p. 380.

7. Ibid., p. 403.

8. Delany, Observations, p. 103.

9. Swift’s Corr., iv. 7.

10. Brit. Mus. 12273. m. 1 (11).

11. Lond. 1728, p. 20.

12. The Weekly Journal, 1728, April 27.

13. More particularly A Supplement to the Profound,
An Essay upon the Taste and Writings of the present
Time, and One Epistle to a Mr. Pope, which were pub-
lished by J. Roberts of Warwick Lane, the first two
in 1728, the last in 1730.

14. Swift’s Corr., iii. 371.

15. The piece To Mr. Pope appears in the Miscellanies
of 1732 ; the other pieces were included in Swift’s Works
by Faulkner in 1735.

16. This piece was also included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1735. Cf. Deane Swift’s Essay, p. 25.

17. Letters to and from Henrietta Countess of Suffolk,
ii. 32.

18. Bouts Rimes was included in Swift’s Works by
Nichols in 1775 ; the other four pieces were included by
Faulkner, the first three in 1735, the last in 1746. The
last appears also in the Miscellanies of 1727.

19. This piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1746. It is dated by him 1738.

20. Taine, op. cit., v. 238 ; Delany, op. cit., p. 75.

21. Appendix XVIII.

22. The first of these pieces was issued in pamphlet

230

WITH POPE

form alone in 1730 and with another piece in 1732. Both
the pieces were included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner,
the first in 1735, the second in 1762.

23. These pieces were included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1735.

24. Appendix XIX.

25. These two pieces were included in Swift’s Works
by Hawkesworth in 1762.

26. Appendix XX.

27. This piece appears in the Miscellanies of 1727.

28. There seems no good reason to disbelieve that the
piece entitled Dr. Delany’s Villa was also written by
Sheridan. His son claims that it was, and Swift is
not so likely as Sheridan to have made fun of Delany’s
villa. The piece was not included in Swift’s Works
until 1776, by Nichols, who included also an epigram
On One of the Windows at Delville. Both had been
printed previously by Concanen in 1724.

29. The first piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Nichols in 1776 and the second by Faulkner in 1762.

The author had intended to mention in this chapter
these two editions of Bounce to Fop :

I. Bounce to Fop. An Heroiek Epistle from a Dog
at Twickenham to a Dog at 'Court. By Dr.

S 1. Dublin, Printed, London, Reprinted for

T. Cooper, in Paternoster-Row. M.DCC.XXXVI.
Folio. (MS. note by second Lord Oxford in
Bodleian copy, — * much altered by Mr. Pope.’)

II. Bounce to Fop. An Heroic Epistle from A Dog
at Twickenham to A Dog at Court. London :
Printed. And Dublin Re-printed by George
Faulkner, Bookseller, in Essex-Street, opposite to
the Bridge. MDCCXXXVI. 8vo. (Royal Irish
Academy, Haliday Pamphlets, vol. 127.)

CHAPTER X

HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED
Ann, Dom. 1728-1730. Aet. suae 60-63

Swift had now to face Ireland, to use a phrase
of his own, as a new world.(l) For him life
there had for more than a quarter of a century
centred in Stella. From communications with
Vanessa and from sojourns with his friends in
the country, he returned always to her with the
same devotion, and while residing at the Deanery,
he saw more of her than of any other person.
At first her death, which occurred in the opening
weeks of 1 T 28 , made on the surface no change.
Swift wrote verses in the same vein, and passed
his time with old friends or with new ones whom
he made through them. But beneath a change
was going on, -and in his verse a symptom soon
appeared in an increasing tendency to select
unpleasant topics, which was evidently due, not
to the Twickenham residence, but to the loss of
Stella’s restraining influence. As years went on
many of Swift’s pieces became nauseating, and
exhibit the state of self-concentration and mis-
anthropy that eventually separated him from
anyone calculated to have an ameliorative effect.

Of what Stella wrote there remain only three
specimens, but those, which are in verse, are

231

232 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

creditable compositions and strengthen the im-
pression gathered from the Journal to Stella that
she was possessed of insight and judgement. The
principal piece, in which she is said to have been
unaided, is one addressed to Swift on his birthday-
in 1721. It is in Swift’s own style and favourite
metre, and shows that she had imbibed his dis-
like of impassioned expression, presenting in that
respect a great contrast to the ardent letters which
Vanessa was at that time inflicting upon him.
Besides that piece, Stella wrote verses On
Jealousy and lines asking the celestial powers to
bestow on her mind what time takes from her
face.(2)

In the years immediately succeeding Stella’s
death, not only in regard to versification but also
in regard to every other interest, Sheridan occu-
pied the foremost place amongst Swift’s friends.
With Stella he had become very intimate in the
last years of her life, and possibly at her request
he did all in his power to lighten the blow of her
death to Swift. But he had a formidable rival
in Delany, who was drawn close --to Swift by a
knowledge that he acquired of London life. While
Swift was at Twickenham, in the summer of
1727, Delany had come for the first time to
London as one of a deputation from Trinity
College to present an address to George the
Second on his accession, and he had been so
bitten with the attractions of the great city that
he returned thither the next year and again a
year or two later. As a link with Swift he was
always made a welcome guest at Twickenham,

1728-1780

288

and having in addition to the friendship of Swift
and Pope that of Carteret, who had taken him
up in Dublin, he gained admission to the court
circle.

Within a few months of Stella’s death. Swift
formed also, a friendship that fascinated him for
two years and was fruitful in inspiring verse,
much of which is of a high order, although marred
by the licence that he began to allow himself
in the choice of subjects. This friendship, which
Sheridan engineered, was with an ancestor of
the Earl of Gosford, the fifth holder of a baronetcy
now merged in the peerage, and his wife, and at
the baronet’s seat, now known as Gosford Castle,
near Armagh, Swift resided for the summer,
autumn and winter of 1728 and summer of 1729.
Of the baronet’s wife Swift had knowledge
through her father Philip Savage, who was for
twenty years chancellor of the exchequer in
Ireland, and a staunch tory, and he found in
her a friend who was willing to submit to all his
whims. But the baronet does not seem to have
been so submissive. During his first visit Swift
treated him with great respect and pronounced
him to be a man of sense and a scholar, but as
a result of further acquaintance Swift wrote
verses to prove that he and the baronet had not
a single point in common, although the baronet’s
toryism was so conspicuous as to have lost him
the succession to his father-in-law’s office.

When Swift returned from London in the
autumn of 1727 he found Sheridan helping to
overwhelm with ridicule an officer, who under

234 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

the name of the Little Beau was then the butt
of Dublin. One of the best satires on him is
in what was then known as Lilliputian verse,
and it seems not improbable that Swift had some
part in The Little Beau’s Speech to his Excellency
the Lord Lieutenant and Lady Carteret on their
Late Arrival Paraphrased :

Most mighty Lord,

I’ve come on board,

Your Excellence,

Without pretence,

To welcome home
To us, your own
True lovers all,

Both great and small,

Who you admiring,

Are still desiring.

That your departure
May hereafter
From us among
Be put off long.(3)

But there were others in Dublin capable of
writing such pieces. In a letter to Pope a few
years later Swift speaks of a little knot of Dublin
collegians and junior clergy dealing in verse
shrewdly enough, (4) and that knot, which in-
cluded William Dunkin and Matthew Pilkington,
the husband of the notorious Letitia, was at
work when the satires on the Little Beau were
appearing. From the fact that George Faulkner,
with whom Dunkin was associated, was the
publisher, it would seem likely that the college

. 1728—1730

235

knot was responsible for a piece that was issued
with the following title and imprint :

A Poem to his Majesty King George II on
the present State of Affairs in England
with Remarks on the Alterations at Court
after the Rise of the Parliament. By
the Rev. Dr. J. Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s,
Dublin.

Dublin : Printed by Little George Faulkner
in Christ’s Church-yard 1727.

- During the early part of the year 1728 Swift
wrote a piece in six-syllable verse entitled On
the Five Ladies at Sot’s Hole with Dr. Sheridan
at their Head, which purported to come from the
Little Beau, and suggested that they would do
better to choose as a companion an officer :

It fills my heart with woe
To think such ladies fine
Should be reduced so low
To,treat a dull divine.

Be by a parson cheated !

Had you been cunning stagers,
You might yourselves be treated
By captains and by majors.

See how corruption grows.

While mothers, daughters, aunts.
Instead of powder’d beaux,

From pulpits choose gallants.

236 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

If we, who wear our wigs
With fantail and with snake.

Are bubbled thus by prigs,

Z-ds ! who would be a rake ?

Sheridan responded with The Five Ladies’
Answer to the Beau, and Swift retorted with The
Beau’s Reply, the whole showing how admirable
a foil Sheridan was to Swift.(5)

At that time also the attack on Sheridan’s
enemy Tighe began again. In Sheridan’s short-
lived venture, The Intelligencer , there appeared
in June A Dialogue between Mad Mullinix and
Timothy, which was occasioned by an assertion
of Tighe’s that party should never die while he
lived. It represents him under the name of
Timothy holding converse with a poor crazy
partisan of the tory cause, who was evidently
a great character in the Dublin of that day, and
persuaded by him to give up party and to adopt
his mode of life. At first Timothy replies :

But how, my friend, can I endure,

Once so renown’d, to live obscure ?

No little boys and girls to cry,

There’s nimble Tim a passing by ;

No more my dear delightful way tread
Of keeping up a party hatred.

Will none the tory dogs pursue,

When through the streets I cry halloo ?

Must all my d — n me’s, bloods, and wounds,

Pass only now for empty sounds ?

Shall tory rascals be elected.

Although I swear them disaffected ?

1728—1780

237

And when I roar, a plot, a plot.

Will our own party mind me not ?

So qualified to swear and lie.

Will they not trust me for a spy ?

But at last he agrees to imitate Mullinix as he
suggested : •

I have a coat at home, that you may try,

’Tis just like this, which hangs by geometry ;

My hat has much the nicer air,

Your block will fit it to a hair ;

That wig, I would not for the world
Have it so formal, and so curPd ;

"Twill be so oily and so sleek,

When I have lain in it a week.

You’ll find it well prepared to take
The figure of toupee and snake.

Thus dress’d alike from top to toe,

That which is which ’tis hard to know,

When first in public we appear.

I’ll lead the van, you keep the rear :

Be careful as you walk behind.

Use all the talents of your mind ;

Be studious well to imitate
My portly motion, mien, and gait ;

Mark my address, and learn my style.

When to look scornful, when to smile ;

Nor sputter out your oaths so fast,

But keep your swearing to the last.

Then at our leisure we’ll be witty,

And in the streets divert the city ;

The ladies from the windows gaping,

The children all our motions aping.

The Dialogue was followed in the July number
of The Intelligencer by Tim and the Fables, in

238 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

which Tim is depicted reading one of Gay’s
fables. The lines end with these six, of which
Swift disclaimed the last four :

The cursed villain ! now I see
This was a libel meant at me ;

These scribblers grow so bold of late
Against us ministers of state !

Such jacobites as he deserve —

D — n me ! I say they ought to starve.

As well as these, four other satires on Tighe,
which were brought to light after Swift’s death,
were probably also written then. As Churton
Collins has said, these pieces, which are entitled
Tom and Dick, Dick a Maggot, Clad all in Brown
and Dick’s Variety, show that anyone who
provoked the hostility of Swift was certain to be
cruelly lacerated and half-suffocated with filth.(6)
Besides the pieces on Tighe, opportunity
for An Elegy on Dicky and Dolly was given to
Swift by the death, almost simultaneously, of
the Countess of Meath and her second husband
General Richard Gorges :

Dick lost in Doll a wife tender and dear :

But Dick lost by Doll twelve hundred a-year ;

A loss that Dick thought no mortal could bear.

Dick sigh’d for his Doll, and his mournful arms cross’d ;
Thought much of his Doll, and the jointure he lost ;

The first vex’d him much, the other vex’d most.

Thus loaded with grief, Dick sigh’d and he cried :

To live without both full three days he tried ;

But liked neither loss, and so quietly died.(7)

1728-1730

239

In addition to the Elegy, Swift was also
probably responsible for a curious ballad con-
nected with the same subject entitled Spuddy’s
Lamentation For the Loss of her Collar. The
latter was published at the time as a broad-
side, but the Elegy is now first found in a small
pamphlet not published until four years later
with the following title and imprint :

An Elegy on Dicky and Dolly, with the
Virgin : A Poem. To which is Added
The Narrative of D. S. when he was in
the North of Ireland.

Dublin : Printed by James Hoey at the
Pamphlet-Shop in Skinners Row, oppo-
site to the Tholsel 1732.(8)

Swift’s arrival at Market Hill, as the Acheson’s
seat was then called, was marked by verses On
Cutting down the Old Thom, in which Swift
showed that he had read up the history of his
host and knew that the first baronet, who
established his family in Ireland, had been
secretary of state for Scotland. The tree was cut
down by Swift’s means, as a prophecy that came
from the root tells us :

Thou chief contriver of my fall.

Relentless dean, to mischief bom.

My kindred oft thine hide shall gall.

Thy gown and cassock oft be tom ;

And thy confederate dame, who brags
That she condemn’d me to the fire.

Shall rend her petticoats to rags.

And wound her legs with ev’ry brier ;

240 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

Nor thou, Lord Arthur, shalt escape ;

To thee I often call’d in vain,

Against that assassin in crape,

Yet thou could’st tamely see me slain ;

Nor, when I felt the dreadful blow.

Or chid the dean, or pinch’d thy spouse :

Since you could see me treated so,

An old retainer to your house.

May that fell dean, by whose command
Was form’d this Machiavelian plot.

Not leave a thistle on thy land ;

Then who will own thee for a Scot ?

The verses On Cutting down the Thorn were
followed by A Pastoral Dialogue, between
a male and a female weeder. It shocked Delany,
but a great lady of the day said it was only to
be expected that dirt should stick to weeds.(9)
According to Swift, he was called upon by the
Achesons to produce pieces of two hundred lines
“ every now and then,” and how he avoided
chiding may be seen in his composition of pieces
entitled My Lady’s Lamentation and Com-
plaint, Twelve Articles, and Lady Acheson
weary of the Dean.(lO) In My Lady’s Lamenta-
tion, which is in Lilliputian verse, he is shown as
generally occupied with landscape gardening :

Now see how he sits
Perplexing his wits
In search of a motto
To fix on his grotto ;

1728-1730

241

How proudly he talks
Of zigzags and walks.

And all the day raves
Of cradles and caves ;

And boasts of his feats.

His grottos and seats ;

Shows all his gewgaws.

And gapes for applause ;

A fine occupation
For one in his station !

A hole where a rabbit
Would scorn to inhabit,

Dug out in an hour ;

He calls it a bower.

But he is also shewn in the Lamentation as asso-
ciating sometimes with the neighbouring clergy,
Henry Jenny, the fourth of his family to hold
a prebend in the Armagh diocese, Nathaniel
Whaley, an Oxford don, John Walmsley, a Dublin
one, and Richard Daniel, Dean of Armagh, “ the
vilest poet alive.”

During the summer Sheridan came on a visit
to Market Hill and afterwards went to the county
of Kilkenny to Ballyspellin, then known as the
Irish Spa. By him the name was made the
keyword for some Bouts Rimes, and when the lines
came to Market Hill it was found that fifteen
other rhymes were possible, and Swift employed
them in ridiculing Sheridan’s lines and Ballyspellin
and sent them in great triumph to Dublin to be
printed.(ll) About the same time Swift and a
legal friend debated in verse on a lawyer preferring
gain to rural joys, the friend’s contribution being
16

242 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

ten and Swift’s just a hundred and fifty lines.
And in lines entitled To Janus on New Year’s
Day, 1729, Swift expresses the wish that Lady
Acheson might look backwards, but she cries
that she will have none but forward eyes :

Give me velvet and quadrille;

I’ll have youth and beauty still.(12)

But the most important outcome of Swift’s
long visit to the Achesons was The Journal of
the Modern Lady, which came out as a pamphlet
with the following title and imprint :

The Journal of a Dublin Lady in a Letter to
a Person of Quality.

Dublin : Printed by S. Harding next door
to the Crown in Copper Alley where Gentle-
men may be furnished with The Intelli-
gencer from no. 1 to no. 19.

As appears from a letter which Swift wrote
on the completion of The Journal in January
1729, his intention was that it should come out
as a number of The Intelligencer, which ceased
then to be issued, and that there should be pre-
fixed to it a letter giving some account of its
origin. Apparently The Journal was founded on
real life, and personal references which it had
originally contained were left out when it was
printed. Although Swift spoke of it as mediocre
and only passable as a family joke, (13) it is one
of the pieces about which Taine became enthusi-
astic (14) as illustrating what he considered the
beauty of Swift’s verse in being a personal and

1728-1730

243

not a developed theme and in making the figures
that it portrays live ;

Now, loitering o’er her tea and cream,

She enters on her usual theme ;

Her last night’s ill-success repeats,

Calls Lady Spade a hundred cheats —

She slipt spadillo in her breast,

Then thought to turn it to a jest :

There’s Mrs. Cut and she combine,

And to each other give the sign ; —

Through every game pursues her tale,

Like hunters o’er their evening ale.

Now to another scene give place :

Enter the folks with silks and lace :

Fresh matter for a world of chat —

Right Indian this, right Mechlin that ;

Observe this pattern ; there’s a stuff ;

I can have customers enough ;

Dear madam, you are grown so hard,

This lace is worth twelve pounds a yard ;

Madam, if there be truth in man,

I never sold so cheap a fan.(15)

After his return to Dublin Swift composed a
Parody on a Character of Dean Smedley written
in Latin by Himself, and had it brought out in
May as an extra number of The Intelligencer .
Shortly before Smedley had gone off to India,
and commemorated his departure from England
by drawing up a Latin inscription to be placed
under a mezzotint of himself. By it he delivered
himself into the hands of the enemy, and in an
outspoken introduction to the Parody, Swift
revealed to the world that Smedley’s preferment
in the Church had been obtained by simony, and

244 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

that his career in literature had terminated in an
attempt to extort money for a literary work
which he could not have accomplished in ten
thousand years. ( 16 ) At that time Swift wrote
also lines On Paddy’s Character of The Intelli-
gencer, which indicates that so successful was
Sheridan in imitating Swift’s style that even
Delany found it difficult to distinguish the work
of one from that of the other. The lines tell
that by The Intelligencer Tom earned a twig of
laurel and that —

Paddy repin’d to see him wear
This badge of honour in his hair ;

And, thinking this cockade of wit
Would his own temples better fit,

Forming his Muse by Smedley’s model,

Lets drive at Tom’s devoted noddle.

Pelts him by turns with verse and prose,

Hums like a hornet at his nose.

At length presumes to vent his satire on

The Dean, Tom’s honour’d friend and patron.(17)

About the beginning of June Swift returned to
the Aehesons, and his stay with them that'summer
was signalized by his composition of The Grand
Question debated whether Hamilton’s Bawn
should be turned into a Barrack or a Malt House,
which was issued some years later in London
with the following title and imprint :

A Soldier and a Scholar : or the Lady’s
Judgment upon those two Characters in
the Persons of Captain and D — n S — t.

London : Printed for J. Roberts in Warwick-
Lane. MDCCXXXII. [Price Six-pence.]

1728-1730

245

The piece, which is adjudged by Churton
Collins (18) to be one of Swift’s best compositions,
has as its chief character Lady Acheson’s maid
and recalls Sirs. Harris’s Petition in its reproduc-
tion of Hannah’s thoughts as well as language :

But Hannah, who listen’d to all that was past.

And could not endure so vulgar a taste.

As soon as her Ladyship call’d to be dress’d.

Cried — Madam, why surely my master’s possess’d.

Sir Arthur the malster, how fine it will sound,

I’d rather the bawn were sunk under ground.

But, madam, I guess’d there would never come good.
When I saw him so often with Darby and Wood.

And now my dream’s out, for I was a-dream’d
That I saw a huge rat — O dear ! how I scream’d —
And after, methought, I had lost my new shoes,

And Molly, she said I should hear some ill news.(19)

At the same time Swift dashed off a few lines
announcing to his friends that he had purchased
land near Market Hill on which he intended to
build a house. By its name of Drapier’s Hill
it was to perpetuate the fame of the Drapier’s
Letters, and during Swift’s lifetime it was to
rival Cooper’s Hill in the amount of verse which
it inspired. The purchase was also sung in lines
which purported to be addressed by Sir Arthur
Acheson to Swift, and were not published until
after Swift’s death :

Happy, O Market-hill ! at least.

That court and courtiers have no taste :

You never else had known the dean.

But, as of old, obscurely lain ;

246 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

All things gone on the same dull track.

And Drapier’s-hill been still Drumlack ;

But now your name with Penshurst vies,

And wing’d with fame shall reach the skies.(20)

Together with these pieces, Swift wrote also
then lines on the two sons of the well-known non-
juror Charles Leslie. As the lines tell us, the
eldest, Robert, who was residing not far from
Market Hill at the family seat Glaslough, had
become at the age of fifty-two a beau and was
about to marry a daughter of the chief justice
of that day, while the younger son, Henry, who
had served in the Spanish army and was residing
at Market Hill with his wife, a Spanish lady,
had been metamorphosed from a man of fashion
into a farmer.(21)

During that year Swift’s acquaintance with
Matthew Pilkington began, and for his benefit
Swift compiled in October Directions for making
a Birthday Song. As a note on the original
manuscript, which is preserved in the Forster
Collection^ 22) shows, it was then sent to “ the
Songster,” who was engaged on an ode for the
approaching birthday of George the Second, and,
in spite of the satire, Pilkington drew probably
from it inspiration for his purpose. Its theme
will be apparent from the opening lines :

To form a just and finish’d piece.

Take twenty gods of Rome or Greece,

Whose godships are in chief request,

And fit your present subject best :

1728-1730

247

And should it be your hero’s case
To have both male and female race,

Your business must be to provide
A score of goddesses beside.(23)

Towards the end of that year, with a vanity that
was characteristic of him, Delany published a
poem that he had addressed to Carteret asking
him to add to the somewhat extensive preferment
that he had already given him. It was issued
in two sizes ; the larger one, a very fine specimen
of Dublin typography, had the following title
and imprint :

An Epistle To his Excellency John Lord
Carteret Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
Dublin : Printed by George Grierson Where
a small Edition of this Poem may be had.

Swift answered it at once with a piece entitled :

An Epistle upon an Epistle from a certain
Doctor to a certain great Lord .being a
Christmas Box for-D. D— ny,

which was no -more than good-humoured rail-
lery.^) But a month later, in the opening
days of February, there was “ publicly cried about
the streets ” other verses from Swift founded
upon it, (25) with the title :

A Libel on D — D — And a Certain Great Lord,

which was in the highest degree political. It
opened by relating how wits like Congreve,
Steele and Gay had been neglected by statesmen,
and how Addison had been so until he became

248 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

a politician, and went on to applaud Pope for
detesting statesmen and refusing the visits of a
queen. Then it proceeded to point out that true
politicians thought less of learning than of a
vote, and that though he had every virtue,
Carteret was not his own master —

submitting still
To Walpole’s more than royal will ;

And what condition can be worse ?

He comes to drain a beggar’s purse ;

He comes to tie our chains on faster,

And show us England is our master :

Caressing knaves, and dunces wooing,

To make them work their own undoing.

What has he else to bait his traps,

Or bring his vermin in, but scraps ?

The offals of a church distrest ;

A hungry vicarage at best ;

Or some remote inferior post,

With forty pounds a-year at most ?

and wound up with the lines :

But I, in politics grown old,

Whose thoughts are of a different mould.

Who from my soul sincerely hate
Both kings and ministers of state ;

Who look on courts with stricter eyes
To see the seeds of vice arise ,*

Can lend you an allusion fitter,

Though flattering knaves may call it bitter ;
Which, if you durst but give it place,

Would show you many a statesman’s face :
Fresh from the tripod of Apollo,

I had it in the words that follow —

1728-1730

249

Take notice, to avoid offence,

I here except his excellence —

So, to effect his monarch’s ends,

From hell a viceroy devil ascends ;

His budget with corruptions cramm’d.

The contributions of the damn’d ;

Which with unsparing hand he strows
Through courts and senates as he goes,

And then at Beelzebub’s black hall,

Complains his budget was too small.(26)

heedless to say, this piece stirred the govern-
ed; dovecots : some were for a violent prosecu-
i, but others thought it better to let it fall
hout notice as it would then die of itself,
ereas a prosecution in the courts or censure
parliament would raise the curiosity of the
>ple to read and disperse it. In writing to
pare Pope for the reference to himself. Swift
>ke of the piece as a whimsical thing that was
rer intended for the public, and in a subsequent
;er mentioned that it was said to have been first
nted in London, an assertion for which no
und is to be found.(27) Evidently his position
bhis matter was discussed with his legal friend,
1 as a result there remains A Dialogue between
Eminent Lawyer and Dr. Jonathan Swift,
3.P.D., which was probably written by Swift
hough it purports to be written by his friend,
o is represented as saying in the concludinglines :

As from the tripod of Apollo

Hear from my desk the words that follow :

Some, by philosophers misled,

Must honour you alive and dead ;

250 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

And such as know what Greece has writ,

Must taste your irony and wit ;

While most that are, or would be great,

Must dread your pen, your person hate ;

And you on Drapier’s Hill must lie.

And there without a mitre die.(28)

Although no steps appear to have been taken
by the government, one of the city magistrates
made himself active in trying to discover the
printer of the Libel, and with that object caused
two newsboys to be arrested, which occasioned
a broadside with lines thus entitled :

A Friendly Apology for a Certain Justice of
Peace ; By Way of Defence of H — y H — n.
Esq; . . . By James Blackwell, Operator
for the Feet.

Printed in the Year 1730.(29)

Meanwhile Delany had become, as Swift wrote,
a target for squibs of a defamatory kind from the
College knot, who were envious of his favour with
Carteret, and he suffered also at the hands of his
friend Sheridan, who could not r resist rushing
into the fray, and gave him the unkindest thrust
of all.(30) As “ a man of much strictness of
life ” and not a little pride, (31) Delany was
terribly mortified, but his fall was broken when
Swift addressed verses to him, which were
published with the title and imprint :

To Doctor D— 1— y on the Libels Writ
against him.

London Printed : And Dublin Reprinted in
the Year 1730.(32)

1728-1730

251

Delany was also sent by Swift lines on the
subject, which he printed in his Observations. (33)
The verses On the Libels were followed by a
pretty piece written by Delany under the title
of The Pheasant and the Lark — a Fable , and by
a no less pretty reply from Swift entitled An
Answer to Dr. D — y’s Fable of the Pheasant
and the Lark.(34)

As soon as parliament, which had been in
session, rose, and the danger of breach of privilege
was at an end. Swift devoted his attention to
Lord Allen, the chief advocate of “a violent
prosecution ” of all concerned in the production
of the Libel on D — D — and a Certain Great Lord,
and in his prose piece the Vindication of His
Excellency John Lord Carteret, which was cried
about as soon as Carteret came from proroguing
parliament, (35) Swift prophesied that Lord Allen
would fall under the hands of “ an incensed
political surgeon ” who would flay and dissect
him “ all for threepence.” Verily Swift did so
in the verses known as Traulus. As originally
published in 1730 the verses were issued in two
parts, one being entitled :

Traulus. The First Part. In a Dialogue
between Tom and Robin,

and the other :

Traulus. The Second Part.

The first part, which was devoted to proving
that Lord Allen was bad, and not, as the public
supposed, mad, was comparatively mild, but

252 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

into the fifty-four lines of the second part Swift
crowded more invective than another would
have conceived in a lifetime. As he had gone
out of his way to pay court to Swift, Lord Allen
was undoubtedly open to a charge of insincerity,
and he was a weak man much under the domina-
tion of his wife, of whom curious tales are told ;
but whether Swift was justified in affixing to
him the unsavoury appellation of Traulus or in
giving him such a character as he has done is
questionable. Certainly he had not truth on his
side in his allegations as to Lord Allen’s ancestors.
At the time Lord Allen and his wife occupied a
great position and set the fashion in Dublin,
where their seat was then the show place. From
his antecedents Lord Allen had only too good
cause to be a strong adherent of the Hanoverian
dynasty, and no one would say that the Libel
was calculated to inculcate loyalty to it. As
regards his ancestors, his great-grandfather, whom
Swift describes as a mason, was the designer of
the great Jacobean mansions that arose in Ireland
during Strafford’s viceroyalty, and his grand-
father, whom Swift describes as a butcher, was
at the time of the Revolution one of the premier
merchants of Dublin on whom the financial
stability of the city depended.(36)

Needless to say, Swift did not escape whig
satirists, and as a concluding stroke he wrote
“ a very sweet libel ” on himself, which was
published with the following title and imprint :

A Panegyric on the Reverend Dean Swift.

In Answer to A Libel on Dr. Delany, and

1728-1730

253

a certain Great Lord. Never before
Printed.

London : Printed for J. Roberts in Warwick -
Lane, and N. Blandford at the London-
Gazette, Charing- Cross. MDCCXXX.
(Price Sixpence.)

Of it he gave the following account to Lord
Bathurst : “ Having some months ago much

and often offended the ruling party, and often
worried by libellers, I was at the pains of writing
one in their style and manner, and sent it by an
unknown hand to a whig printer, who very
faithfully published it. I took special care to
accuse myself but of one fault of which I am
really guilty, and so shall continue as I have done
these sixteen years till I see cause to reform ;
but in the rest of the satire I chose to abuse
myself with the direct reverse of my character,
or at least in direct opposition to one part of
what you are pleased to give me. ”(37)

In the midst of this turmoil there appeared in
The Whitehall Evening Post of March 19 An
Apology to Lady Carteret in Ireland which
relates how Swift was invited to dine with the
Countess, how on finding her not in he came
away believing that the invitation was a dream,
how he was bidden again next day and forgiven
on promising to tell the truth in rhyme, and how
he entertained afterwards the Countess in
Naboth’s Vineyard where he —

Instead of spoils of Persian looms,

The costly boast of regal rooms.

254 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

Thought it more costly and discreet
To scatter roses at her feet ;

Roses of richest dye that shone
With native lustre like her own ;

Beauty that needs no aid of art
Through every sense to reach the heart.

The gracious dame, though well she knew
All this was much beneath her due,

Lik’d every thing — at least thought fit
To praise it par maniere <T acquit. (38)

At the end of June Swift wrote that he was
setting out for a tour of four or six weeks, and
that he intended to stay nowhere long, but to
go from house to house, whether inns or friends.
In the end he stayed away three months and
must have spent a good part of the time at
Market Hill. According to Sir Walter Scott,
he stayed there with Henry Leslie, but he appears
from two of the pieces that he wrote to have been
as domestic as ever in the Aeheson’s house.' One
of these pieces is entitled The Revolution at
Market Hill, and the other A Panegyric on the
Dean, in the Person of a Lady in*the North.(39)
In the latter piece he took even greater licence
than in the Pastoral Dialogue to touch on
subjects that even in that age were usually
avoided in polite literature. A third piece, which
he wrote then, was entitled The Dean’s Reasons
for not building at Drapier’s Hill. (40) According
to what he wrote Pope, he had never any inten-
tion of doing so ; (41) but according to these
verses, he was only deterred by the baronet’s
unsociable character and dissimilarity of taste.

1728-1730

255

While he was at Market Hill an unfortunate
accusation against a Cathedral dignitary sent
from England gave him opportunity for a ballad
which was published as a broadside with the
heading :

An Excellent New Ballad : or, The true En — sh

D — n to be hang’d for a R — pe.(42)

Soon after Swift’s return to Dublin on St.
Cecilia’s Day, November 23, a musical festival
was held in his cathedral by the Dublin Musical
Society of that day, and a sermon was preached
in the capacity of chaplain to the Society by
Sheridan.(43) The festival and the sermon,
which extolled the use of music in divine worship.
Were greatly criticized, and the criticism no doubt
occasioned lines entitled The Dean to Himself on
St. Cecilia’s Day.(44) A Quibbling Epigram on
Stephen Duck, the Thresher and Favourite Poet,
was also written at that time,(45) and found its
origin no doubt in the title prefixed to Duck’s
poems which were then published.

One of tlm most extraordinary pieces that
Swift ever composed is entitled Death and
Daphne, in which he pictures the king of terrors
as a suitor for a lady’s hand. It was addressed
to Mrs. Pilkington, whose acquaintance Swift
made at the close of the year 1729, and she is
represented in the piece under the name of
Daphne as a woman so thin and fragile that Death
fled from her. In the opinion of Delany,(46)
who says very truly that it is a piece of the
greatest singularity, the lines were likely to live

256 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

as long as Swift’s name on account of their
scheme and execution. In addition Swift wrote
about that time lines on Mrs. Pilkington, as
Daphne, descriptive of her character, and four
occasional pieces entitled On Burning a Dull
Poem, To Betty the Grisette, The Power of Time,
and A Fable of the Lion and other Beasts.(47)

NOTES

1. Swift’s Corr., i. 62.

2. The first and third of the pieces were included in
Swift’s Works by Sheridan in 1784, the second by
Nichols in 1776. Concanen printed the last two in
1724. Cf. Deane Swift, op. cit., p. 81 ; Delany, op. cit.,

p. 68.

3. Brit. Mus. 1890. c. 5 (95).

4. Swift’s Corr., iv. 152.

5. The first and second of the pieces were included
in Swift’s Works by Faulkner in 1735 ; the third by
Hawkesworth in 1765.

6. The first of the pieces, which appears in the
Miscellanies of 1732, was included in Swift’s Works by
Sheridan in 1784 ; the others were included by Hawkes-
worth in 1755. Cf. Churton Collins’s^ Jonathan Swift,
p. 229.

7. In The Weekly Journal of April 27 a correspondent
writes from Dublin on the 13th : “ On Monday last
(the 8th), the Countess of Meath, who was married to
General Gorges, died at Kilbrew, the General’s seat in
the county of Meath, which is. about twelve miles from
this city; she was to have been brought here to-morrow
to have been interred in St. Audoen’s Church with her
father and mother, but General Gorges himself died
yesterday and the burial place of his family is at
Ratoath.” On the 16th the correspondent adds :

1728-1780

257

“ General Gorges and his lady the Countess of Meath
were buried together last Sunday (the 14th) at Kilbrew.”

8. The Elegy was included in Swift’s Works by
Hawkesworth in 1765. For the Lamentation see
Appendix XXI.

9* The two pieces appear in the Miscellanies of
1782.

10. The first and second of the pieces were included in
Swift’s Works by Hawkesworth in 1765, the third by
Faulkner in 1768. The last was printed in The Daily
Post Boy of April 7, 1780, and appeared as a broadside
with the heading and imprint : Lady A — S — N Weary
of the Dean. . . . Printed in the Year 1780. It was
reprinted by Cogan in 1752.

11. Swift’s Corr., iv. 48. In The History of the
Second Solomon we are told that Sheridan was prevailed
upon by a lady who accompanied him to Ballyspellin
to resent Swift’s lines as an affront on her and himself,
“ which he did accordingly against all the rules of
reason, taste, good-nature, judgement, gratitude or
common sense.”

12. These three pieces were included in Swift’s Works
by Faulkner, the third in 1785, the others in 1762. The
first had been printed by Cogan in 1752. The year
1726 has been attached in error in some editions to
the last piece.

18. Swift’s Corr., iv. 61.

14. Op. cit., iii. 198.

15. It appears in the Miscellanies of 1782, and had
been issued in England in pamphlet form with the
following title : The Journal of a Modern Lady in a
Letter to a Person of Quality. By the Author of
Cadenus and Vanessa. First Printed at Dublin and
now Reprinted at London for J. Wilford near Stationers’
Hall 1729 [Price Four Pence].

There has been attributed to Swift an Epitaph on
17

258 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

the tomb of the Earl of Suffolk’s fool, who died in 1728,
and A Poem eulogizing James Maculla’s proposals
for regenerating Ireland. The former was probably
written by someone on the spot and the latter by Dean
Smedley.

16. The Parody was included in Swift’s Works by
Sheridan in 1784.

17. The piece appeared as a broadside. It was
included in Swift’s Works by Nichols in 1776, and had
been .reprinted by Cogan in 1752.

18. Op. cit., p. 229.

19. The piece appears in the Miscellanies of 1732.
It was issued in Dublin in pamphlet form with the title —
The Grand Question debated : Whether Hamilton’s
Bawn Should be turn’d into a Barrack, or a Malt-House.
According to the London Edition, with Notes. London
printed by A. Moore. And, Dublin Re-printed by
George Faulkner in Essex-Street, 1732.

20. Both were included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner,
the first in 1735, the second in 1762. An Answer to
some lines on a very old glass at Market Hill was
included by Faulkner in 1746 (viii. 194).

21. The autograph, which is dated August 4, 1729, is
in the Forster Collection, no. 521. The piece was
included in Swift’s Works by Hawkesworth in 1765.

22. No. 522. The heading is : Directions for a
Birthday Song. In a Letter to ye Songster, October
1729 : at the end is written : “ When I hear from you
that this has come safe to hand the sermon will follow.”

23. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Hawkesworth in 1765.

24. It was issued in pamphlet form both singly and
with the Epistle to Carteret. Both were included in
Swift’s Works by Nichols in 1776. They had been
reprinted by Moore in 1734 and the Epistle upon an
Epistle by Cogan in 1752.

1728-1730 259

25. Marmaduke Coghill to Edward Southwell,
February 3, 1729/30, Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 21,122.

26. The Libel was included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1735. It bad been issued in London in
pamphlet form as A Satire on Dr. D — ny. By Dr.
Sw — t. To which is added, The Poem which occasion’d
it. Printed at Dublin : And Re-printed at London, for
A. Moore, near St. Paul’s. 1730. Of this pamphlet there
are several editions.

27. Swift’s Corr., iv. 127, 414.

28. Included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner in 1762.

29. The Apology was reprinted in The Daily Post
of March 18 and Fog’s Weekly Journal of June 27.
Nichols included it first in Swift’s Works in 1779.
Another broadside on the subject was entitled A
Vindication of the Libel, or A New Ballad : Written
by a Shoe-Boy on an Attorney, who was formerly a
Shoe-Boy. Printed in the year 1729-30. It was by
Dunkin; see Nichols’s Literary Illustrations, v. 384.

30. The piece professes to be written by Mrs. Barber’s
husband. It is entitled An Answer to The Christmas
Box in defence of Doctor D — n — y. By R — t B — r.

81. Swift’s Corr., iv. 152.

32. The piece appears in the Miscellanies of 1732.

33. Op. cit., p. '309 ; included by Faulkner in 1758.

34. The Pheasant and the Lark was reprinted in
The Daily Post of April 4. Both pieces were included
in Swift’s Works by Hawkesworth in 1765. Other
pieces are A Letter of Advice To the Revd. D — r.
D — la — y, Humbly propos’d to the Consideration of a
certain Great Lord, 1730 ; Some Seasonable Advice
to Doctor D — n — y, 1730 ; and The Goddess Envy to
Doctor D — 1 — y, 1730 (Royal Irish Academy, Haliday
Pamphlets 96. 18).

85. Marmaduke Coghill to Edward Southwell, April
18, 1730, Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 21,122.

260 HIBERNIAN ASSOCIATIONS RENEWED

36. The first part was reprinted in The Daily Post Boy
of August 21. Both parts appear in the Miscellanies
published in England in 1735. They were included in
Swift’s Works by Hawkesworth in 1755.

37. Appendix XXII. Cf. Swift’s Corr., iv. 167.

38. This piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Hawkesworth in 1755. It was printed as a pamphlet
in 1730 without a printer’s name and in 1734 by
Moore.

39. These pieces were included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1735.

40. The autograph, which is dated September 1730,
is preserved in the Forster Collection, no. 524. The
handwriting is to some extent disguised. The piece was
included in Swift’s Works by Hawkesworth in 1765.

41. Swift’s Corr., iv. 167.

42. See The British Journal, June 13, 27 ; Applebee’s
Original Weekly Journal, June 20 ; The Weekly Journal,
June 27. Cf. Swift’s Corr., iv. 161.

43. A Sermon Preached at St. Patrick’s Church on
St. Caecilia’s Day. By Thomas Sheridan, D.D.
Psalm 150, 5, 6. Quintil. Inst. Orat. lib. I. c. 4.
Dublin : Printed by S. Powell in Crane Lane for the
Author 1731.

44. The autograph is preserved in Ihe Forster Collec-
tion, no. 533. The piece was first included in Swift’s
Works by Hawkesworth in 1765.

45. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1735. Cf. Swift’s Corr., iv. 173.

46. Op. cit., p. 125.

47. The Power of Time appears in the Miscellanies of
1732. Faulkner included in Swift’s Works in 1735
Death and Daphne, On Burning a Dull Poem, and To
Betty ; Hawkesworth in 1765 Daphne ; and Sir Walter
Scott the Fable.

CHAPTER XI

ALONE

Ann. Dom. 1731-1737. Aet. suae 63-70

During the remaining years of his life Swift’s
environment no longer affected the subject or
form of his verse. The long sojourns in country
houses, which had provided themes for many
pieces, became a thing of the past, and although
the intimacy with Sheridan and Delany con-
tinued, their influence as regards verse ceased.
Indeed for both of them verse seems to have lost
its attraction. In the case of Sheridan surplus
energy was thrown into the composition of the
Anglo-Latin prose on which he and Swift spent
weary days and nights, and in the case of Delany
it was concentrated on diluvian history. On
Swift’s verse the effect of solitude was remarkable
in the decrease in the number and increase in
the importance of the pieces that came from his
pen, and for the few years that his intellectual
power remained unimpaired, almost every line
that he wrote is worthy of attention.

Within a few years he composed three of his
longest and best pieces, On the Death of Dr.
Swift, On Poetry —a Rhapsody, and An Epistle to
a Lady who desired the Author to make Yerses

261

262

ALONE

on Her in the Heroic Style. Amongst Swift’s
verse these pieces, with Cadenus and Vanessa,
and the Imitations of Horace’s Quinque dies and
Hoc erat, stand in a class by themselves, and
amongst them for pride of place On Poetry — a
Rhapsody vies with Cadenus and Vanessa. But
the three long pieces do not exhaust the number
of Swift’s notable verses in those years. Four
revolting pieces, one entitled The Lady’s Dressing
Room being the chief, which were written then,
cannot be ignored as works of genius, and the
Epistle to Mr. Gay, The Beast’s Confession, The
Place of the Damned, and The Day of Judgement,
which were also compositions of that period, are
in their several ways intellectual efforts of a high
order.

With regard to the publication of his verse the
closing years of Swift’s working life were a time
of action and the greater number of his pieces
were then printed for the first time or reprinted.
In connexion with their publication the husband
of Letitia Pilkington looms large. As people of
middle understanding and middle rank, whose
society Swift then sought, the Pilkingtons recom-
mended themselves to him and were for a time
prime favourites at the Deanery. As Swift
lived to discover, the Rev. Matthew Pilkington
was not overwhelmed with conscientiousness or
his wife with virtue, but they were extremely
plausible, and succeeded for some years in com-
pletely deceiving not only Swift but also many
others. They were both clever. He had been
a scholar of Trinity College, wrote verse with

1731-1737

263

ease, and became the author of A Complete
Dictionary of Painters, which brought him credit,
and she enjoys posthumous fame as the authoress
of her own Me7noirs. Their acquaintance with
Swift was as unfortunate for them as it was for
him. It began when they were a young married
couple, and probably then, as the son and
daughter respectively of a tradesman and an
accoucheur, they were, as Swift said, modest in
their demeanour.(l) But after a few years’ run
of the Deanery that quality was one that none
but Swift could find in them. In 1728, when he
was introduced to Swift, Pilkington had not been
long in holy orders and was only three years
married, (2) and, as has been mentioned, he had
been admitted to favour by Swift, in October
1729, and had accepted him as his mentor. A
month later Mrs. Pilkington ingratiated herself
by sending Swift verses on his birthday, and in
the autumn of the following year Pilkington
followed her example by singing Swift’s praises
in a collection of his own poems that he published
then. In the preface there is also a reference to
Swift, which is very typical of Pilkington and
shows with what art he turned Swift’s patronage
to his own advantage : “ Inexpressible are the
obligations (and unpardonable were the folly and
humility of concealing them), which I have to
the admired Doctor Swift, who condescended to
peruse the following poems with the greatest
kindness and care, and honoured them with his
corrections and remarks ; and I hope he will forgive
me the vanity of telling the world how much

264

ALONE

candour, humanity, and accuracy of judgement
he testified on that occasion. ”(3)

In the summer of 1732 Pope began to worry
Swift about material for another volume of their
joint Miscellanies. This volume had been fore-
shadowed in the preface written in 3727, and it
was to be introduced as volume three, an arrange-
ment which had been made possible by the
volume published in the spring of 1728 having
been designated “ the last.” As many of the
letters concerning the publication of the third
volume, which was published in October 1732,
have been destroyed, the negotiations are not
clear, but there are sufficient letters to show that
Swift did not view the project with favour, and
that Pope was more concerned about the profit,
which went wholly to him, than about his friend’s
reputation. With regard to verse. Swift men-
tioned as possible pieces for the volume, but
without saying that he wished them published,
the Libel on Doctor Delany and a Certain Great
Lord, To Doctor Delany on the Libels writ
against him, The Grand Question-’ Debated, The
Journal of a Modern Lady, The Lady’s Dressing
Room, and The Place of the Damned. He
referred also to the Dialogue between Mad
Mullinix and Timothy and Tim and the Fable,
and said that beside The Grand Question Debated,
he had written five or six, perhaps more, “ papers
of verses ” in the north of Ireland, two or three
of which might be tolerable, but the remainder
of which were indifferent, the humour being local
and the contents likely to give “ offence to the

1731-1737

265

times. ”(4) When the volume reached him.
Swift found, to his evident dismay, that it con
tained almost no verse except his own, and that
of the pieces that he had named the Libel on
Doctor Delany and a Certain Great Lord, The
Lady’s Dressing Room, and The Place of the
Damned had been omitted and instead he was
represented by such pieces as The Country Life,
On Cutting down the Old Thorn at Market Hill,
A Pastoral Dialogue, Mary the Cookmaid’s Letter,
and To Mr. Pope while writing the Dunciad.

To some extent Pope may have been influenced
in the choice of pieces by considerations of copy-
right. He had originally arranged to issue the
volume through his new publisher called Lawton
Gilliver, whom he had played off against Benjamin
Motte, the publisher of the three first volumes,
in order to get more profit, but he found that
as the representative of Swift’s old friend Ben-
jamin Tooke, Motte had too strong a lien on
Swift to be disregarded, and eventually the
volume was published under the joint names of
Motte and Gilliver, the title-page being as
follows :

Miscellanies. The Third Volume.

London : Printed for Benj. Motte at the
Middle Temple-Gate, and Lawton Gilliver
at Homer’s Head, against St. Dunstan’s
Church in Fleetstreet, 1732.

But even after this arrangement had been made
difficulties about copyright were not at an end,
for while Pope’s volume was on the anvil, Pilking-

266

ALONE

ton was arranging for the publication of a rival
one. In the absence of the letters that have been
destroyed the position cannot be unravelled
fully, but from such information as is available
it appears to have been an extraordinary one.
A month after Swift had sent Pope the list of
possible pieces he wrote to Motte, in reply to a
letter which is not forthcoming, that he never
intended anyone but Motte should be concerned
for him as printer or publisher, and that he
intended on his death to leave his unpublished
pieces to Pope with a recommendation that
Motte should be employed to print them. He
expresses also his desire that all pieces which he
acknowledged should be printed during his life-
time by Motte, provided it should be to Motte’s
advantage, and adds that Motte is at liberty to
tell Pope that this is the case.(5) But within
a week Swift executed a document that would
appear on the surface to be in direct contraven-
tion of all that he had said to Motte.

Whereas several scattered papers, in prose
and verse for these four years last past,
were printed in Dublin by Mr. George
Faulkner : some of which were sent in
manuscript to Mr. William Bowyer of
London, printer, which pieces are supposed
to be written by me, and are now, by the
means of the Reverend Matthew Pilking-
ton, who delivered or sent them to the said
Faulkner or Bowyer, become the property
of the said Faulkner and Bowyer : I do

1731-1737

267

here, without specifying the said papers,
give up all manner of right I may be
thought to have in the said papers to
Mr. Matthew Pilkington, aforesaid, who
informs me that he intends to give up the
said right to Mr. Bowyer aforesaid.
Witness my hand

July 22, 1732 Jonath. Swift

from the Deanery House
in Dublin the day and
year above written.(6)

In letters written to Bowyer in the following
month with regard to the rival volume, Pilkington
stated that the assignment covered the following
pieces, some of them, it will be noticed, being
amongst those that Swift had named to Pope #
as available for his volume, — The Grand Question
Debated, the Ode to Ireland, the Libel on Doctor
Delany and a Certain Great Lord, To Doctor
Delany on the Libels writ against him, The Irish
Feast, The Dressing Room, The Country Life,
On Cutting down the Old Thorn at Market Hill,
The True English Dean, and The Journal of a
Modem Lady. Pilkington said also that Swift
had discussed with him the titles for the pieces,
which he was revising with a view to their
publication by Bowyer, and that letters which
Swift had received from Motte and Pope, pre-
sumably complaining of the rival volume, had
not been of the least disadvantage to him.(7)
But before the rival volume took shape. Pope
appears to have brought pressure to bear on

268

ALONE

Bowyer and stopped its publication. Several
letters which passed between Swift and Pope
on the subject have been destroyed, but, according
to Pope, Swift said in one of them that by the
assignment he never intended to give a perpetuity,
but a leave only to reprint, (8) and Swift may
possibly have had in view in these tortuous
proceedings a scheme for keeping control of his
pieces without acknowledging himself to be the
author.(9)

While this correspondence was going on, Swift
persuaded an old London friend, John Barber,
who was about to be elected lord mayor of
London, to appoint Pilkington as his civic
chaplain, (10) and when Pilkington was filling
that position, in the spring of 1733, Swift made
use of him to perpetrate a huge All Fools’ Day
joke, by sending him a piece which purported
to be the Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift. By
some of Swift’s later biographers it has been
doubted that he wrote the travesty, for such it
was, but Mrs. Pilkington states in the most
categorical manner that he did ; * Lord Orrery,
who was then closely in touch with the Deanery,
mentions it as a matter about which there was
never any question ; and Faulkner is equally
emphatic.(ll) Besides, none but Swift would
have taken the trouble to compose the travesty.
As Swift said himself, not a single fine, or bit
of a fine, or thought, resembled the genuine
verses ; (12) but at the same time the travesty
follows the Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift
with exactness, and could only have been written

1731-1737

269

by one who had access to them. In addition the
date, April 1, affixed to the dedication is addi-
tional proof that none but Swift, who held that
festival in high regard, was the author. As
appears from a letter written some years later the
travesty was published through Motte,(13) but
it was issued under another name, the title-page
being —

The Life and Genuine Character of Doctor
Swift. Written by Himself.

London : Printed for J. Roberts in Warwick-
Lane, and Sold at the Pamphlet Shops,
&c. 1733. (Price One Shilling.) (14)

At the close of the year 1733 Pilkington, who
did not leave London for some time after the
expiration of Barber’s year of office, arranged
for the publication of the Epistle to a Lady
who desired the: Author to make Verses on
Her in the Heroic Style, and On Poetry — a
Rhapsody. As the event proved, political allu-
sions which they contained were a source of
danger to all concerned in issuing them. They
were both published, however, with a printer’s
name. The first was announced in The Daily
Journal of November 15 as follows :

This Day is Published [Price One Shilling]
An Epistle to a Lady who desir’d the
Author to make Verses on Her in the
Heroic Stile. Also A Poem occasion’d by
reading Dr. Young’s Satires, call’d The
Universal Passion. Dublin Printed : and

270

ALONE

Reprinted at London for J. Wilford, at
The Three Flower-de-Luces, near the
Chapter House in St. Paul’s Church-yard.

The second was announced in the same news-
paper for December 31 as follows :

This Day is published [Price One Shilling]
On Poetry. A Rhapsody. Printed at
Dublin, and now Reprinted : Sold by J.
Huggonson, next to Kent’s Coffee-house,
near Serjeants’ Inn, in Chancery -Lane ;
and at the Booksellers and Pamphlet-
Shops. (15)

Although the proceedings were taken on the
verses To a Lady, it was not until after the
publication of On Poetry — a Rhapsody that they
commenced. On January 11, 1734, John Wilford,
as the ostensible publisher, was taken into
custody ; by him Lawton Gilliver was implicated ;
by Gilliver Motte and Pilkington ; and finally,
by whom is not known, Mrs. Barber, the poetess,
who had brought the manuscript from Ireland.
All were released on bail, except Motte and Mrs.
Barber, who were kept in confinement for more
than a year. In popular opinion Pilkington was
the informer not only against Mrs. Barber but
also against Swift, whose arrest is said to have
been only averted by the difficulty of executing
the warrant in Ireland, but Mrs. Pilkington
avers that her husband was not guilty, and says
that she is the more entitled to credit as she had
no reason to be partial to him.(16)

Before Pilkington had left London he had

1731-1737

271

gained anything but a good character amongst
Swift’s friends, who did not mince matters in
writing about him.(17) But notwithstanding
what they said, and the fact that Pilkington
had set up an acquaintance with one of Walpole’s
sons, which in any other case would have been a
deadly sin in Swift’s eyes, Swift received him
into full favour on his return to Dublin, and was
induced by him to give a semi-sanction to the
publication of his works by Faulkner. In the case
of the volumes published during his lifetime
Swift’s semi-sanction was manifested, according
to Faulkner, in his allowing his friends to revise
the sheets and in his giving them sometimes the
benefit of his opinion, and according to Orrery
in his actually seeing each sheet and correcting
'it if necessary himself. (18) But both Faulkner
and Orrery say that Swift would give no aid in
arranging or dating the contents of the volumes,
and the want of his assistance was particularly
felt in regard to the metrical pieces.

To these the second volume, which was pub-
lished in 1735, was wholly devoted. It was con-
sidered of much importance, and was issued with
an elaborate symbolical frontispiece executed by
Philip Simms, a Dublin engraver of some note.
The design of the allegory was to show the height
of fame to which Ireland might attain if heedful
of the spirit of independence that Swift’s writings
inculcated. In the centre there is a medallion
portrait of Swift, with on the right a figure of
Hibernia and on the left one of Minerva, while
beneath the plains and hills of Ireland appear

272

ALONE

with the sea in the forefront, and above on the
left there are the symbols of night, sleep and
death, and on the right the dawn with a figure
of Aurora. Hibernia, who is seated on a rock,
has in her right hand a rudder bearing the arms
of Ireland and points with her left hand to the
sea, indicating that through her insular position
she can be the mistress of her fortunes, and
Minerva has in her right hand a wreath, which
she is about to place on the representation of
Swift’s head, indicating that Swift has the pre-
eminence to fit him to be an adviser. Under the
medallion on a scroll there is the inscription :

The Poetical Works of the Revd. D. S.
D.S.P.D. 1734;

and on the title-page opposite the frontispiece
there appears :

Volume II. Containing the Author’s
Poetical Works.

Dublin : Printed by and for George Faulkner,
Printer and Bookseller in Essex-Street,
opposite to the Bridge, 1?35.(19)

In the same year also such pieces as had not
appeared in the Miscellanies were brought out
in a volume in London with the following title-
page :

Miscellanies, In Prose and Verse. Volume
the Fifth. Which with the other Volumes
already published in England, compleats
this Author’s Works.

1731-1737

273

London : Printed for Charles Davis, in Pater-
noster Row. MDCCXXXV.

If the year 1731 had produced no more than the
Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, it would be
one to be marked with a white stone. His
amazing piece. Sir Edmund Gosse calls it.(20)
As regards its composition let Swift speak for
himself. Writing on December 1 to Gay he
says : “ I have been several months writing

some five hundred fines on a pleasant subject,
only to tell what my friends will say on me after
I am dead. I shall finish it soon, for I add two
lines every week, and blot out four and alter
eight. I have brought in you and my other
friends as well as enemies.”(21) Swift opens the
piece, which is dated November 1731, with argu-
ments in support of the conclusion of La Roche-
foucauld that “ in the adversity of our best
friends, we find something that does not dis-
please us ” :

In Pop§ I cannot read a line.

But with a sigh I wish it mine ;

When he can in one couplet fix
More sense than I can do in six,

It gives me such a jealous fit,

I cry, Pox taka him and his wit.

I grieve to be outdone by Gay
In my own humorous biting way.

Arbuthnot is no more my friend.

Who dares to irony pretend,

Which I was born to introduce.

Refin’d it first, and shew’d its use.

18

274

ALONE

St. John, as well as Pult’ney, knows
That I had some repute for prose ;

And, till they drove me out of date,

Could maul a minister of state.

If they have mortified my pride,

And made me throw my pen aside ;

If with such talents Heaven has blest ’em.

Have I not reason to detest ’em ?

He goes on then to tell what will be said when
he begins to break ; how the news of his death
will be received in the streets, by the doctors,
by Curll, and in the circle of his friends as well
female as male ; what view will be taken a
year after his death of his works ; and how the
history of his life will be told and discussed in clubs.

The publication of the verses did not take place
for eight years, and had been originally intended
by him not to have taken place in his lifetime.
To the author of an unreadable book, Dr. William
King, the principal of St. Mary Hall in Oxford,
Swift intrusted the arrangements, and under
King’s direction the verses were published in the
opening months of 1739 with the following title
and imprint :

Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift.

Written by Himself : Nov. 1731.
London: Printed for C. Bathurst, at the
Middle Temple - Gate in Fleetstreet.
MDCCXXXIX.

But by Pope, whom King had consulted, the
verses had been cut down and altered, not only
as regards arrangement, but in some places as

1731-1737

275

regards meaning, in a wholesale fashion, and they
were published without notes which Swift had
appended to them. (22) Swift was greatly dis-
pleased, and without delay he had an edition
issued in Dublin by Faulkner giving the verses
as originally written with the notes, but in some
places leaving words and names, indicated by
dashes and asterisks, to be supplied. The title-
page was as follows :

Verses on the Death of Dr. S — , D.S.P.D.
Occasioned By reading a Maxim of Roche-
foulcault. Dans Vadversite de nos meilleurs
amis nous trouvons quelque chose , qui ne
nous deplaist pas. In the Adversity of
our best Friends, we find something
that doth not displease us. Written by
Himself, November 1731.

London Printed : Dublin : Re-printed by
George Faulkner. M,DCC, XXXIX.

Reference must next be made to the four
offensive pieces. In the opinion of the bio-
graphers who *knew Swift personally, Orrery,
Delany and Deane Swift, Swift had in writing
them a moral purpose. “ They are the pre-
scriptions of an able physician,” says Delany,
the one best fitted to judge, “ who had in truth
the health of his patients at heart, but laboured
to attain that end, not only by strong emetics, but
also by all the most nauseous and offensive drugs
and potions that could be administered, but yet
not without a mixture of the finest ingredients
that could possibly be imagined and contrived

276

ALONE

to take off the offence which the rest so justly
gave. ”(23) Here one would wish to leave the
subject, but honesty compels it to be said that
the argument would be stronger if one could
forget that, although in a less open way, similar
images occur in every period of Swift’s verse,
and that they are especially to be found in the
pieces written at Market Hill, where questions
of morality were certainly not an issue. It is
probable that the four pieces were written at the
same time. The Lady’s Dressing Room is dated
1730 : two of the others 1731. The first, of
which Swift says the copy was stolen, was printed
in 1732, with the following title :

The Lady’s Dressing Room. To which is
added, A Poem on cutting down the Old
Thorn at Market Hill. By the Rev. Dr.
S— t.

London, Printed for J. Roberts at the
Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane. 1732
(Price Sixpence).(24)

The other three appeared together in 1734, the
title being as follows :

A Beautiful Young Nymph going to Bed.
Written for the Honour of the Fair Sex.
... To which are added, Strephon and
Chloe and Cassinus and Peter.

Dublin Printed : London reprinted for J.
Roberts in Warwick-Lane, 1734 (Price
One Shilling). (2 5)

By Swift there was also written in 1731, in

1731-1737

277

eighteen lines of ten syllables, The Place of the
Damned, which recounts the classes that made
Ireland a hell upon earth. It was issued as a
broadside in that year with the following heading
and imprint :

The Place of the Damn’d : By J. S. D. D.
D. S. P. D.

Printed in the Year, 1731.(26)

About the same time Swift is believed to have
written also The Day of Judgement, which, in
twenty-two lines of his usual metre, pictures
Jove treating the world’s feuds as insignificant,
and telling the offending race that in believing
in the doctrine of damnation, they had been
victims of a bite. These wonderful lines, as
Mr. Lecky calls them, (27) were evidently guarded
jealously by Swift, but in some way they came
into the possession of Faulkner, who passed them
on to his patron Lord Chesterfield.(28)

As Swift told Gay, in a letter written in March
of that year, the genesis of the Epistle to Mr.
Gay, which was written then, was an idea
gathered from one of Pope’s letters that Gay was
employed by the Duke of Queensberry to supervise
his receipts and expenditure. As described by
Swift, the Epistle sounded a very innocuous
piece, only proving “ that poets are the fittest
persons to be treasurers and managers to great
persons, from their virtue and contempt of money,”
and prescribing lessons to direct Gay’s conduct
“in a negative way, not to do so and so, etc.
like other treasurers,” how to deal with servants.

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ALONE

tenants and neighbouring squires, whom Swift
took to be “ courtiers, parliaments and princes in
alliance. ”( 29 ) But in reality the Epistle was
an undisguised and most violent attack on
Walpole, and so entranced was Swift by the topic
that he could not keep within reasonable bounds.
In the same vein are the lines On Mr. Pulteney’s
being put out of the Council, which were occa-
sioned by the removal on July 1 of Pulteney’s
name from the list of privy councillors, and
from such commissions of the peace as it had
been in.

With regard to Irish affairs Swift’s satire rose
then to no less height, as may be seen in the pieces
entitled An Excellent New Poem on the Bishops
by an honest Whig Curate and Judas, in which
he celebrates his triumph over the bishops by
defeating parliamentary bills which they had
introduced and which he believed would have
resulted in the impoverishment of the country
incumbents. But that Swift’s mind was not yet
all gall and bitterness may be seen in other pieces
written that year : — On Psyche, in which he sings
the praises of his friend Mrs. Sican, who was a
poetess by reputation if not by works ; Helter
Skelter, or The Hue and Cry after the Attorneys
going to ride the Circuit, in which lawyers are
depicted in no friendly spirit ; and a rhyming
contest with Dr. Helsham and Sheridan on the
words “ juice sick.”(30)

The Beasts’ Confession, one of Swift’s more
important pieces, is dated 1732. In it the king
of the beasts is represented as requiring his

1731-1737

279

subjects to confess their sins when plague has
stricken the land. The wolf confesses that he
has broken his fast, but defies proof of his having
done his neighbour wrong or being actuated by-
thirst of blood ; the ass confesses that he is a
wit, but says that nature is to blame and repre-
sents that his voice rivalling that of a nightingale
compensates for his ugly ears ; the swine con-
fesses that he is too nice in his diet, but excuses
himself on the ground that he hates sloth like
pease ; the ape confesses that his strictness
engages him in quarrels and that his virtues are
too severe ; and the goat confesses that he needs
forgiveness for his chastity. Apply the tale,
says the moralist, and you will find how it fits
the human kind. The lawyer swears that he
freely gives the poor advice and never delayed a
cause above a term or two ; the knave says that
he failed because he could not flatter or turn his
coat ; the chaplain vows he cannot fawn and is
wanting in worldly wisdom ; the doctor makes a
profession of religion and says that he shuns
apothecaries’ shops and scorns to make his art
a trade ; the statesman tells one that his fault
is sincerity and unselfishness ; and the sharper
says that he hates play and always loses by want
of skill. The piece was published in 1738 with
the following title-page :

The Beasts Confession to the Priest, on
Observing how most Men mistake their
own Talents. Written in the Year 1732.

Dublin : Printed by George Faulkner.(31)

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ALONE

Various other pieces are connected with the
year 1732. In one of these, an epigram. Bishop
Hort became again the subject of Swift’s satire.
The epigram was headed On seeing a worthy
Prelate go out of Church in the Time of Divine
Service to wait on his Grace the Duke of Dorset,
and consisted of the following lines :

Lord Pam in the church (cou’d you think it ?) kneel’d
down :

When told the lieutenant was just come to town,

His station despising, unaw’d by the place, '

He flies from his God, to attend on his Grace ; ,

To the court it was fitter to pay his devotion

Since God had no hand in his lordship’s promotion. (32)

Besides this epigram there are assigned to
that year Epigrams on the Busts which Queen
Caroline had placed in her garden at Richmond,
An Answer to A new Simile for the Ladies written
by Sheridan, and some lines On I Know Not
What. (3 3)

It was in the same year, 1732, that one of
Swift’s Dublin heroes, Humphrey French, was
elected lord mayor of the city. If his works are
correct, Swift adapted then in French’s honour
verses which had done service three years before
in adulating Lord Carteret ; (34) and whatever
doubt may be felt as to his responsibility for that
piece, Swift seems certainly to have written a
very stirring ballad in French’s praise. It is
entitled The Alderman’s Guide or A new Pattern
for a Lord Mayor, and contains these stanzas :

1731-1737

281

Of Humphrey we’re told,

The good Duke of old,

For virtue renown’d, and high blood ;

Now tho’ not his grace
Nor royal in race,

Yet ours is an Humphrey as good.

Our pray’rs heard on high,

Have brought from the sky,

Fair Justice to visit the land.

On cushion and bench,

She substitutes French,

Committing her scales to his hand.

The sun from his course.

Or streams from their source.

You sooner cou’d turn — I assure ye —

Than make him unjust.

Or false to his trust —

Pray mark me — 0 Walpole and Fleury ! (35)

At that time it is probable that Swift was
occupied by the pieces To a Lady who asked the
Author to write Verses upon her in the Heroic
Style and On Poetry — a Rhapsody. The former
was addressed to Lady Acheson, and was probably
begun several years before at Market Hill. It
opens by a reference to the pieces in which Swift
had told of her follies. Then it represents her
as protesting that there are points in her character
worthy of praise, excusing her failings as natural
in one bred as a great heiress, and begging some
lines in a sublimer strain. Afterwards it gives
Swift’s reply. He admits that for the qualities

Ete has even encountered vice with mirth and
kicked ministers with scorn rather than with
late, and has found it to answer.

Were I in some foreign realm.

Which all vices overwhelm ;

Should a monkey wear a crown,

Must I tremble at his frown ?

Could I not, through all his ermine,

Spy the strutting chattering vermin ;

Safely write a smart lampoon.

To expose the brisk baboon ?

When my muse officious ventures
On the nation’s representers :

Teaching by what golden rules
Into knaves they turn their fools :

How the helm is rul’d by Walpole,

At whose oars, like slaves, they all pull ;

Let the vessel split on shelves ;

With the freight enrich themselves :

Safe within my little wherry.

All their madness makes me merry :

Like the watermen of Thames,

I row by, and call them names ;

Like the ever-laughing sage.

In a jest I spend my rage :

Though it must be understood,

I would hang them if I could.

He loves so much to have his fling that he
cannot alter and she must not object :

If I treat you like a crown’d head.

You have cheap enough compounded ;

Can you put in higher claims,

, Than the owners of St. James ?

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ALONE

You are not so great a grievance,

As the hirelings of St. Stephen’s.

You are of a lower class

Than my friend Sir Robert Brass.

None of these have mercy found :

I have laugh’d, and lash’d them round.

It is probable that no long interval intervened
between the completion of the piece To a Lady
and that On Poetry — a Rhapsody. In the style
and treatment there is much similarity. In
Poetry — a Rhapsody, which Goldsmith held to
be not only the most masterly production of its
author, but also one of the best versified poems
in our language, (36) the irony, which is sustained
from the first to the last line, is astonishing.
Everyone claims to be a poet is the burden of the
opening lines, although no employment requires
more heavenly influence, disqualifies in a greater
degree for professional adornment, and brings
less reward. To a new attempter an old experi-
enced sinner offers then his counsel. He tells
him to choose whatever subject he can manage
best, and to set his poem off by 'copious use of
breaks and dashes, italics and capitals. Then
to publish it surreptitiously and to listen to what
the critics at Will’s say about it. As soon as it
has become wastepaper let him try a second and
a third time, when he can profit by the criticisms
that he has overheard, and introduce conven-
tional jests, conceits and descriptions, and vent
his fury against the letters of the alphabet, which
can be used to represent a parliament or den
of thieves, a statesman or a South-Sea jobber, a

1731-1737

285

prelate who believes in no god, etc. If the third
attempt fails, the aspirant can become a party-
man, and write a pamphlet in Sir Bob’s defence,
or sing the praises of a king, but if he means to
thrive let him choose a living one. In case he
thinks that, trade too base, he can become a
critic and get disciples. London is covered
with poets, civic, political and plebian. The
greater devour the less : even fleas have smaller
fleas on whom to prey. In purchasing fame by
writing ill, there is still difficulty. Few are able
to reach the low sublime : in poetry the height
is known, it is only infinite below. In the con-
cluding passages the hoary sinner declaims on
the indignity and shame of flattering kings whom
Heaven designed as the plagues and scourges of
mankind, but of course their own king is an
exception :

Fair Britain, in thy monarch blest,

Whose virtues bear the strictest test ;

Whom never faction could bespatter.

Nor minister nor poet flatter ;

What justice in rewarding merit,

What magnanimity of spirit.

What lineaments divine we trace
Through all his figure, mien and face.

The intensity of irony continues as the royal
family is reviewed :

The consort of his throne and bed,

A perfect goddess born and bred.

Appointed sovereign judge to sit
On learning, eloquence, and wit.

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ALONE

Our eldest hope, divine lulus —

Late, very late, 0 may he rule us.

What early manhood has he shown,
Before his downy beard was grown ;

Then think, what wonders will be done,
By going on as he begun,

An heir for Britain to secure
As long as sun and moon endure.

The remnant of the royal blood
Comes pouring on me like a flood :

Bright goddesses, in number five ;

Duke William, sweetest prince alive.

Finally, Walpole comes under the harrow :

Now sing the minister of state,

Who shines alone without a mate.

Observe with what majestic port
This Atlas stands to prop the court :
Intent the public debts to pay,

Like prudent Fabius, by delay.

Thou great vicegerent of the king,

Thy praises every Muse shall sing !

In all affairs thou sole director,

Of wit and learning chief protector ;
Though small the time thou hast to spare,
The church is thy peculiar care.

Of pious prelates what a stock
You choose to rule the sable flock !

You raise the honour of the peerage.
Proud to attend you at the steerage.

You dignify the noble race,

Content yourself with humbler place.

Now learning, valour, virtue, sense,

To titles give the sole pretence.

1731-1737

287

St. George beheld thee with delight.

Vouchsafe to be an azure knight.

When on thy breast and sides Herculean,

He fix’d the star and string cerulean.

With the exception of very few pieces, the
verses of the remaining years of Swift’s life con-
tain nothing but violent personal satire, and before
proceeding further it will be convenient to men-
tion three pieces of the lighter kind that seem
attributable to the year 1733 : these are A Love
Song in the Modern Taste and An Ode on Science
ridiculing the style of versification then in vogue,
and a few lines entitled The Hardship put upon
the Ladies, the hardship being card-playing.(37)
When the Irish parliament met again in the
autumn of 1733 one of the first acts of the House
of Lords was to attack Faulkner for his part in
Swift’s opposition to the bishops’ bills in the last
session, and after a fortnight’s imprisonment to
have him reprimanded on his knees by the
chancellor. Although the House of Commons
began well by selecting “ with a roar ” a proposal
to tamper with the Test, (38) it came under
Swift’s displeasure by considering a bill which
would have involved serious loss to a large number
of the clergy. As the bill related to the tithes
from flax and hemp, it did not concern Swift
personally, but he constituted himself the
protagonist of such of his brethren as were affected
by it and appeared by counsel at the bar of the
House. One of the chief supporters of the bill
was the redoubtable Serjeant Bettesworth, and

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on Mm Swift’s wrath was vented in the verses
On the Words Brother Protestants and Fellow
Christians which appeared at the end of December.
In it Swift told how things of heterogeneous
kind come together and how in particular —

at the bar the booby Bettesworth,
Though half a crown o’erpay’s his sweat’s worth.
Who knows in law nor text nor margent,

Calls Singleton his brother serjeant.

These verses were followed by a ballad entitled
The Yahoo’s Overthrow : or The Kevan Bail’s
New Ballad upon Serjeant Kite’s insulting the
Dean, which, although it professes to be written
by another, is beyond the capacity of any author
but Swift :

The Dean and his merits we every one know,

But this skip of a lawyer, where the De’il did he grow ?
How greater his merit at Four Courts or House,

Than the barking of Towzer or leap of a louse.

That he came from the Temple, his morals do show ;
But where his deep law is, few mortals *yet know ;

His rhetoric, bombast, silly jests, are by far
More like to lampooning than pleading at bar.

Subsequently when Bettesworth threatened to
cut off his ears. Swift wrote an Epigram to prove
that this would be a mercy rather than a penalty,
as it would save him from being racked by
Bettesworth’s voice and having to listen to his
nonsense ; and when Bettesworth railed at Arch-
bishop Bolton, Swift wrote lines On the Arch-

1731-1737

289

bishop of Cashel and Bettesworth, in which he
said that it would be more effective if Bettesworth
praised the archbishop, as his panegyrics like
mops dirtied more than they cleaned.(39)

The year 1734 is made memorable in the history
of Swift’s life as a writer of verse by a mystery
as to his part in a clash that took place during
it between Charles Carthy and William Dunkin,
then both aspirants for fame as poets in Dublin.
At the time it was believed to be a case of Carthy
and others versus Dunkin and Swift, and although
two years later Swift declared that he had seen
Dunkin only twice in company and would not
be able to recognize him by appearance, it is
evident that their knowledge of each other was
not so slight as Swift wished people to believe,
and that directly or indirectly there was com-
munication between them. When the clash
took place, Carthy, who was the son of an inn-
keeper in Longford, was a man of thirty years
of age and a master of arts of Dublin University,
where he had been distinguished as a sizar and
scholar, earning his bread as a schoolmaster in
Dublin ; and Dunkin, whose father was described
as of gentle blood, was a man of twenty-seven
years of age and a master of arts also of Dublin
University, where he had been, however, un-
distinguished, dependent on an annuity secured
for him in connexion with a gift of lands to the
University by one of his aunts. The origin of
the clash is not clear. Three years before the
clash came the names of Swift and Dunkin had
appeared amongst a host of subscribers to a
19

290

ALONE

volume published by Carthy, Dunkin’s subscrip-
tion being for no less than six copies, and a year
before the clash came Swift had received support
that was not despicable from Carthy in singing
the praises of Humphrey French. The actual
clash comprised three pieces, The Kevan Bail
Poem, Dunkin Chastised, and Mezentius on the
ack, but there were many other pieces that
bore upon it. Before it took place there appeared
an attack on one of Carthy’s followers, a poetaster
named James Drelincour, in the form of a
dialogue between him and his grandmother’s
ghost and pieces in which Dunkin is described
as the chevalier of St. Patrick, and after the clash
took place there appeared A Libel on the Dunces
and The Scall’d Crows Nest, which owed clearly
their origin wholly to Swift.

Apart from this episode there is little to mark
the year 1734. Latin lines written in September
On his Deafness indicate Swift’s prostration
both in mind and body, (40) but some anonymous
nursery rhymes occasioned by the birth of
Delany’s daughter suggest that, relief was still
sometimes found in la bagatelle. (4il)

The opening of the year 1735 is associated
with lines entitled The Dean and the Duke and
an Epigram occasioned by the neglect of the
Duke of Chandos, who had been well known to
Swift in the days of Oxford’s ministry, to answer
a letter in which Swift had requested him to give
manuscripts relating to Ireland then in his
possession to the library of Trinity College,
Dublin.(42) Later on, in 1735, there came from

291

1731-1737

Swift’s pen his somewhat famous lines On Dr.
Bundle, Bishop of Derry. Bundle’s appointment
to the Irish episcopal bench, after his rejection
for heterodoxy in England, was too congenial
a theme to escape Swift, and gave him scope for
unlimited satire on the qualifications of those
whom Bundle was about to join and of those
who had been his rivals. Together with the lines
there came also from Swift’s pen an Epigram which
purported to be on Bundle, but was in reality
a satire on Primate Boulter’s profundity.(43)

While parliament was sitting in the beginning
of the year 1736 there appeared a pamphlet
entitled A New Proposal for the better Regulation
and Improvement of Quadrille , which had been
written by Bishop Hort, but owed something
to revision by Swift and contained a suggestion
that in cases of dispute Bettesworth should be
employed as arbiter. On March 3 complaint
was made of the pamphlet in the House of
Commons as containing “ two scandalous para-
graphs highly reflecting on a member of the '
House,” and /m the same day the unhappy
Faulkner was again attached as the printer and
committed a close prisoner to the common prison.
As malignant fever was raging in it he was in
two days transferred to the custody of the
serjeant-at-arms, but another printer, Edward
Waters, who had the temerity to reprint the
pamphlet, was three days later sent to the plague-
stricken gaol. The immediate response from Swift
were pieces On a Printer being sent to Newgate
and On Noisy Tom, and probably also pieces

292

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entitled A new Ballad by way of Dialogue between
a Kite and Crow on the Quadrille, A Satire upon
a monstrous Peruke Gown and Band written by
a Kite, and A Curry-Comb of Truth for a
certain Dean, or The Grub-street Tribunal.(44)
But it is certain that these proceedings were
also in a great degree the origin of The Legion
Club. In the opinion of Churton Collins, that
piece is a philippic with neither equal nor second
in the literature of invective, but although all
must admit that as the artist Swift never was
greater than in it, the piece appears to an average
mind to lose effect by its maniacal fury. It
pictures the members of the House of Commons
as the inmates of the asylum that Swift founded,
and with regard to those who are mentioned by
name, it drags into the light of day every iniquity
that a microscopic examination could detect in
the lives of themselves or of their ancestors.

Who is that hell-featur’d brawler ?

Is it Satan ? No ; ’tis Waller.

In what figure can a bard dress^

Jack the grandson of Sir Hardress ?

Honest keeper, drive him further.

In his looks are Hell and murder ;

See the scowling visage drop,

Just as when he murdered Throp.

Keeper, show me where to fix
On the puppy pair of Dicks :

By their lantern jaws and leathern.

You might swear they both are brethren :

Dick Fitzbaker, Dick the player,

Old acquaintance, are you there ?

1731-1737

293

And again disparagement of the son and brother
of Lord Allen is found in the occupation of the
peer’s great-grandfather.

Those. are Allens, Jack and Bob,

First in every wicked job,

Son and brother to a queer
Brain-sick brute, they call a peer.

We must give them better quarter,

For their ancestor trod mortar.

And at Howth to boast his fame
On a chimney cut his name. (45)

Even in 1737 a flash of humour as well as satire
came from Swift’s pen, the latter in Ay and No
— a tale from Dublin which recounts Swift’s
contest with Primate Boulter, at the Lord
Mayor’s feast, about the lowering of the standard
of gold, and the former in a ballad upon the same
subject.

Patrick astore, what news upon the town ?

By my soul there’s bad news, for the gold she was
pulled down?

The gold she was pull’d down, of that I’m very sure.
For I saw’d them reading upon the towlsel doore.

Sing, och, och, hoh, hoh.

Arrah ! who was him reading ? ’twas a jauntleman in
ruffles,

And Patrick’s bell she was ringing all in muffles ;

She was ringing very sorry, her tongue tied up with rag,
Lorsha ! and out of her shteeple there was hung a black
flag.

Sing och, etc.

294

ALONE

But then the curtain falls save for the Epigram
attributed to his last years :

Behold ! a proof of Irish sense ;

Here Irish wit is seen !

When nothing’s left that’s worth defence,

We build a magazine.(46)

NOTES

1. Swift’s Corr., iv. 169, 257 ; cf. Alumni Dublinenses.

2. Dublin Marriage Licence.

3. Poems on Several Occasions. Printed by George
Faulkner in Essex-Street opposite to the Bridge, 1730.

4. Swift’s Corr., iv. 307.

5. Ibid., p. 359.

6. Nichols, 1779 (Supplement, p. 479).

7. Swift’s Corr., iv. 483.

8. Ibid-, p. 485.

9. The publication of the third volume of The
Miscellanies was thus announced in The Daily Post of
October 2 — “ Next Wednesday (the 4th) will be pub-
lished in 8 vo. : Another Volume of Miscellanies in Verse
and Prose by Dr. Swift, Mr. Pope, &c. : Containing
several Pieces never before published and others never
before collected together, which finishes the entire
Collection of these Miscellanies. Printed for E. Motte
under the Middle Temple Gate and L. Gilliver at Homer’s
Head against St. Dunstan’s Church, Fleet-street.
Where may be had, in Octavo, the Three Volumes
formerly published, or the last of those Volumes, con:
taining The Art of Sinking in Poetry with the Poetical
Pieces. Price 5s. unbound.”

10. Swift’s Corr., iv. 323, 333,' 338.

11. Orrery, op. eit., p. 279 ; Mrs. Pilkington’s
Memoirs, i. 88 ; Faulkner, 1746.

1731-1737

295

12. Swift’s Corr., iv. 428.

13. Ibid., v. 214.

14. A copy of this edition in the Bodleian Library
bears in writing the date April 12. An advertisement
of the edition appears in The Daily Journal of April 20.
The piece was published in Dublin under the title :
“ The Life and Genuine Character of the Revd. Dr.
S — t, D.S.P.D. Written by Himself. London Printed
and Reprinted and Sold by Edward Waters on the Blind
Quay, Dublin, 1733.” Appendix XXIII.

15. A Dublin edition bears the title “ On Poetry :
A Rapsody. London Printed, and Dublin Re-printed,
by and for S. Hyde, Bookseller in Dame-Street, 1734.”

16. Swift’s Corr., v. 51 n., 59 n., 214.

17. Ibid., pp. 44, 67.

18. Op. cit., p. 79.

19. See for advertisement concerning the publication
of Swift’s Works in 1735, Swift’s Corr., v. 449.

20. English Literature, p. 239.

21. Swift’s Corr., iv. 273.

22. Ibid., pp. 107, 109, 114, 458.

23. Observations, p. 198.

24. A second edition appeared in the same year with
this title : “ The Lady’s Dressing Room. To which is
added, I. A Poem on cutting down the Old Thom at
Market Hill. II. Advice to a Parson. III. An
Epigram on seeing a worthy Prelate go out of Church
in the Time of Divine Service to wait on his Grace the
D. of D. By the Rev. Dr. S — t. We may observe, the
finest Flowprs, and the most delicious Fruits, sometimes
.owe their Nutriment and Increase to such kind of
Matter, as is most offensive to the Senses, which them-
selves have the greatest Power to gratify. Fiddes.”
There were also several Dublin editions. One was
entitled : “ The Lady’s Dressing-Room. A Poem. By
****** London Printed, and Dublin Reprinted in

296

ALONE

the Year 1732.” Another was entitled : “ The Lady’s
Dressing-Room. A Poem. By D — n S — t. From the
Original Copy. The Third Edition. Dublin : Printed
and Sold by George Faulkner in Essex-street, 1732.”
The piece was reprinted in Berington’s Evening Post
of June 17, 1732.

25. The four pieces were included in Swift’s Works
by Faulkner in 1735. There appears also in that
collection a still more objectionable piece Apollo, or A
Problem solved. With it may be associated The
Mishap, which was attributed to him at the time of
his death, and it is to be feared rightly.

26. This piece was also included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1735.

27. Swift’s Prose Works, 1897, i. xl.

28. The lines were included in Swift’s Works by
Nichols in 1775.

29. Swift’s Corr., iv. 202.

30. Excepting Helter Skelter, the seven preceding
pieces were included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner, the
first four in 1735, the fifth in 1762 and the last in 1746.
Helter Skelter was included by Hawkesworth in 1775.
It had been published as a broadside, which was
announced in The Daily Journal of December 7, 1731.

31. A London edition is thus entitled : “ The Beasts
Confession to the Priest, on Observing how Most Men
mistake their own Talents. By J. S. D.S.P. Dublin,
Printed : London, Re-printed : And Sold by F. Cooper,
at the Globe, in Pater-Noster-Row, 1738.” The piece
was included in Swift’s Works by Faulkner in 1746.

32. The Epigram appears in Fog’s Weekly Journal of-
July 15, 1732, and in the Miscellanies of the same year.

33. The Epigrams were included in Swift’s Works by
Sheridan in 1784 and Hawkesworth in 1765 ; The
Simile by Faulkner in 1738 ; and the lines by Hawkes-
worth in 1765. The autograph of the last is in the

1731-1737

297

Forster Collection. The Simile was reprinted in The
Weekly Register of August 19, 1732.

34. The Ode in its original form bore the title : “ To
his Excellency John Lord Carteret, Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland. An Imitation of Horace. Ode IX. Lib. IV.
Dublin : Printed by James Carson in Coghill’s-Court,
Dame’s Street, 1729.” As applied to French, the Ode
was included in Swift’s Works by Nichols in 1779.
In that application it was afterwards attributed to
Charles Carthy. See An Ode addressed to the Freemen
and Freeholders of Dublin in 1739.

35. Appendix XXIV.

36. The Beauties of English Poesy, 1767, i. 175.

37. The three pieces were included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner, the first and third in 1735, the second in 1762.

In The Daily Journal of February 24, 1733, Curll and
others announced — A Panegyrical Poem on the Hom-
Book. With a surprizing Satire upon a very surprizing
Lord, Written by Dr. Swift.

38. Swift’s Corr., v. 53.

39. On the Words was included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1735 ; The Yahoo’s Overthrow by Hawkes-
worth in 1765 ; The Epigram by Sir Walter Scott; and
the lines by Hawkesworth in 1765. An incomplete
piece, The Irish* Club, seems connected with the pro-
ceedings then. It was added to Swift’s Works by
Hawkesworth in 1765.

40. The lines were included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1746.

41. Appendix XXV.

. 42. The Dean and Duke was included in Swift’s
Works by Hawkesworth in 1765, and The Epigram by
Faulkner in 1746. The autograph of the first is in the
Forster Collection, no. 527.

48. The first piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Faulkner in 1762, and the second by Nichols in 1775.

298

ALONE

In the year 1735 a pamphlet of some forty pages was
published with the following title — Ub-bub-a-boo : or.
The Irish Howl in Heroic Verse. By Dean Swift. London :
Printed for J. James without Temple-Bar, and Sold
by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, 1735.
[Price One Shilling.] It is, both from its style and length,
unlikely to have had any connexion with Swift.

44. The first two pieces were included in Swift’s
Works by Faulkner, the first in 1746, the second in
1762, and the last was included by Nichols in 1776.

45. The piece was included in Swift’s Works by
Hawkesworth in 1755. It was published at Glasgow
in the following year under this title : A Character,
Panegyric and Description of the Legion Club. And he
said Legion because many Devils had entered therein.
Luke VIII. 30. Written by the Writer, But he was
not the Inditer. Dublin Printed : Glasgow Reprinted
in the year 1756.

46. Ay and No was included in Swift’s Works, by
Nichols in 1776, The Ballad by Sir Walter Scott and The
Epigram by Nichols in 1775.

By Sir William Wilde (op. eit., p. 183) there were
attributed to Swift two pieces entitled respectively The
Review in 1738 and Fix’d on St. James’s Gate. Doubt
may be felt about the correctness of" the attribution,
although “ the original manuscript in the Dean’s well-
known disguised hand ” was sold by Sotheby, Wilkinson
& Hodge on December 1, 1910.

APPENDIX I

THE

LOYAL ADDRESS

OF THE

Clergy of Virginia.

May it please you dread Sir, we the Clerks of Virginia,
Who pray for Tobacco, and preach for a guinea,
Patroon’d to contempt, and by favour made elves,

For troopers are listed and pay tythes to our selves.
The meanest Brigade of your Majesties Grubstreets,
Tho’ late, not least loyal of your clerical subjects.
Among crouds of True Hearts that of late do address
you,

In our humble phrase do crave leave to carress you
To shew for your safety how with zeal we burn all,
Under the Reverend James Blare our Collonel.

And here we canh’t choose but proclaim our resentment.
That we mar! what the devil the politick French meant :
In affront to your person, and the throne that you sit on.
To dub the young Bricklair, the King of Great Britain.
Tho’ we are not with some so high pufft with the ptysick.
As to say ’tis a breach of the Treaty of Reswick ;

Yet we boldly averr, and by words do assure it
To be such a contempt, we can never indure it :
Wherefore if your foes do persist for to slight you.

We will all of us pray, nay and some of us fight too :
For like Hogans half drunk, your polemicks I fancy
Can club prety well when inspir’d with Nantsy,

299

300

APPENDIX I

Among all the Black Guard you cann’t miss of an Hector,
Unless you chance light on the Williamburg Rector :
Yet we’ll favour the French if we find they’l be civil.
For be it known that we fear ’em no more than the Devil :
However we chan huff it, if they never come near us,

If they should I am afraid they would damnably scare
us :

Then to save our own skins, and to silence gainsaiers,
We’ll leave of our bouncing and fall to our prayers.
May kind Heavens preserve long your Majesties good
soul.

And bring Lewis to beg a loath’d life at your footstool :
May Mantanoon p** his black soul to the devil,

And Burgundy rot with his putred Kings Evil :

May young D’Anjoy be trust at the arm of the main-
yard.

And Austria possess the command of the Spaniard :
May all factious distinctions henceforth be forgotten,
Nor your spiritual pedlers be contrould by a Scotch
one :

May your health in your college go loyally round,

And all your leige people have twelve-pence a pound.

Williamsburgh :

Printed for Fr. Maggot, at the Sign of the Hickery-Tree
in Queen-Street. 1702.

Brit. Mus. C. 20. f. 2 (224).

APPENDIX II

A

Trip to Dunkirk :

Or,

A HUE and CRY
After the Pretended
Prince of WALES.

BEING A

PANEGYRICK

ON THE

DESCENT.

Why, hark me, Sirs, — if this rumour holds true,

W’are like here, egad, to have somewhat to do :

The French, as they say (he’ll believe it that sees it,)
Are coming gadzookers to pay us a visit ;

With such a vast fleet — (L — d mercy upon’s.

And keep us. from popery, swords and great guns)

That as I’m alive — tho’ I ne’er was afraid yet.

It almost had frighten’d me — first when I heard it.

Nay, more than all this, it is certainly said
There’s a little Welch Monarch to come at their head ;
And he, (shame the devil, and let us speak the truth,)
You know in your hearts is a very smart youth,

And doubtless will prove, when he’s pleas’d to bestir
him.

As valiant as e’er was his father before him,

301

302

APPENDIX II

Who bent on some great expedition in view,

Now glitters in arms with an equipage too,

Which, positively, you may swear is all new.

For as I have heard, (if some people speak right,)

He ne’er march’d before, — unless ’twere to **** ;

But now at the head of ten thousand brave fellows,
(That is, as accounts thence are pleas’d for to tell us)
He’s going on some strange advantage or other
(Perhaps ’tis to seek out his father and mother)

In Ireland, or Scotland, or some land or another ;

I can’t tell you where, but some place no doubt,

Which you’ll hear time enough if he e’er does set out,
With an army of French, Popish bridles and knives,

To cut all our throats and to **** all our *****.

Then stand to your arms, all good people, I’d wish you,
You loyal train’d-bands, and the valiant militia,

Brush up your buff-doublets and Scotch basket-hilt,
(By which, to your honour, no blood was e’er spilt ;)
The nation will now your assistance want sore,

Which, as I remember, they ne’er had before,

Nor will — I hope in kind Heaven, e’er want any more.
Altho’ for your zeal, it is not to be question’d.

You’ve always been ready when ought has occasion’d,
At ev’ry rejoicing you’ve made a fine show,

(And that is one part of a soldier we know,)

Been drunk, and done all that became you to do.

And as for your valour we cannot deny it,

’Tis known you can fight — tho’ you’d rather be quiet.
Nor has the French threats, or their menaces scar’d us.
Because we knew well we’d such a hero to guard us.
Then since they’re so hot on’t, ’gad e’en let ’em come.
I’ll warrant they’ll be maul’d — tho’ I don’t say by whom!
We’ve rods here in piss, that will firk off their tails.

For all their brave all’s — and their monarch of Wales.
Adsheart the young hero had best take a care.

That he ben’t in conclusion drawn into a snare ;

A TRIP TO DUNKIRK

303

For as it is said, his old godsire intends

(Or at least wou’d be glad as the matter now stands)

To get shut of him handsomely off of his hands ;

And therefore e’en tells him in words very plain,
That he, hopes (which is true) ne’er to see him again.
To e’en sink or swim, fleet, forces and all.

He’ll venture this cast, tho’ it cost him a fall.

To Ireland some think this Welsh hero is bound,
Tho’ pox that’s a jest, we may venture five pound :
For there’s an old debt still on Lewis’s score.

He was bit in assisting his father before.

And therefore he’ll hardly come there any more.

No, Scotland’s the place they say he’s design’d to.
Where ’tis thought —

H’as a great many friends — which perhaps he’ll scarce
find so ;

But let him take care what may follow hereafter,

If he trusts to the Scots, he may chance catch a Tartar ;
And if he should fall in our clutches ye know,

He’d be damnably mump’d, I can tell him but so ;

Were I in his case I’d not trust my own brother,

They sold us one K , shou’d they sell us another ;

For our jacks here at home — as brave fellows as may be.
They prick up their ears at the news on’t already ;

And out of their zeal they expect him at least
To be here, French and all, when the wind’s next at
east ;

But some are more cautious, and question it much,

And doubt th’ invasion’s design’d on the Dutch ;

For the noise of his landing they swear ’tis a bite all.
They’ll trust to’t no more — till they see him at White-
Hall.

304

APPENDIX II

But this is but talk all, and so let it rest.

Some are still of opinion ’twill all prove a jest ;

This hero at Dunkirk will make his campaign.

And so gallop back to St. Germains again.

FINIS.

London : Printed, and Sold by the Booksellers of London
and Westminster. 1708.

Brit. Mus. 11631. bb. 43.

APPENDIX III

An Irish BALLAD,

UPON THE

Rev d Mr. Francis Higgins
his

TRYAL ;

Before the Lord Lieutenant and Council,
in Dublin.

To the Tune of Ye Commons and Peers.

I

At a Sessions of late,

There arose a debate.

Which the dons of the county resented ;
When.a hot-headed jury,

With less wit than fury,

An orthodox church-man presented.

II

With a peer at their head,

Who the managers led,

They most boldly petition’d his Grace,
With tumult and riot,

And zeal most unquiet,

To preserve the Queen’s Majesties peace.
20 305

306

APPENDIX III

III

But the good man in black,

Who no courage did lack,

Wou’d not bate the proud noble an ace, Sir,
Tho’ he hufft and look’d big,

And hector’d at Higg,

He bravely supported his place, Sir.

IV

Then, to bully and boast,

They began with a toast,

To William their hero so brave ;

But oh ! I profess,

’Tis a sorrowful case,

To disturb a man’s rest in his grave.

V

In peace let him lie,

With his memory,

Whilst our gracious Queen Anne fills the throne ;
By birth and by merit,

Long may she inherit
(In spite of her foes) what’s her own.

VI

But the Whigs that unite
To invade her just right,

Wou’d be their own Monarch’s electors ;
To pull high-flyers down,

The best friends to the Crown,

And set up themselves for protectors.

AN IRISH BALLAD

307

VII

These sharpers still aim
At the Forty-one game.

Enrag’d, while they cant moderation ;
That Knaves shou’d be trump.
And a Parliament Rump
Palm bad votes for laws on the nation.

VIII

Of late our Recorder,

’Gainst duty and order,

Has flown in the face of the Duke ;

But when he doth babble,

To his long-ear’d rabble.

Some are forc’d to come off with a puke.

IX

This orator quaint
His hearers does taint,

Whence some who are pleas’d to be witty.
Do ghje him a name,

I here write with shame,

Not the mouth but the a of the city.

X

Some with addle pates.

In furious debates,

Have rail’d at the gown in great passion ;
For they have their heart on
Fanatical Wh — ton

Who wou’d bring the cloak into fashion.

308

APPENDIX III

XI

Hence Clod-pate and Rowly
On the Doctor fell foully,

For slighting a health as prophane ;

And their champion my Lord,

Late a man of the sword,

Wou’d his Coll — fa lost honour maintain.

XII

This youngster so smart
Has attempted a part.

To be for the faction a bully ;
But mark the disaster
Of pert little master,

His worship came off like a cully.

XIII

He thought, without doubt,

The Doctor must out,

As soon as his train he did summons ;
And hop’d to be try’d
By hearing one side.

As Mercer was try’d by the Commons.

XIV

To gain him success.

Some great ones, we guess.

In private cabals have assisted ;

But since under the rose,

We will not disclose,

Tho’ the plot may in time be untwisted.

AN IRISH BALLAD

309

XV

With these owls of the night.

Was a swan, tho’ not white,

A witness that swore fast and loose ;

But if birds of a feather,

Do still flock together,

’Tis plain that their swan was a goose.

XVI

A like evidence
For conscience and sense
Was Tom Carter deep read in the laws.
Who by falshood, and fictions.

And gross contradictions,

Meant to strengthen, but ruin’d the cause.

XVII

And as we do hear,

They summon’d to swear,

Some persons in office and trust ;

I shall mention but one,

And that’s good as ten,

The maker of pyes and pye-crust.

XVIII

This officer saith.

She lives in Tredath,

An evidence chief in the case ;

But she wou’d not be seen,

For fear that the Queen
Shou’d turn her quite out of her place.

310

APPENDIX III

XIX

Thus my moderate friends,

To gain their vile ends,

Their violent methods pursue ;

But while Sir Con’s in place,

To advise the Duke’s grace,

He their plots and cabals will undoe.

XX

Next Anglesea brave
A tribute shall have.

And he in my sonnet shall follow ;

The Church’s defender,

When few did befriend her.

Who spake in her case like Apollo.

XXI

Then fill boys the glass,

Here’s a health to his Grace,

Whilst those two fast friends are about him ;
Whom if he forsake,

With grief I must speak,

In spight of his guards they will rout him.

XXII

Before I conclude.

The cause of the fewd,

’Tis fit should be told, without favour.

How a fresh-water soldier,

Who ne’re had smelt powder.

Was scar’d at the cock of a beaver.

AN IRISH BALLAD

311

XXIII

And if a cock’d hat
Cou’d cause such debate,

As did in this scuffle befal,

Oh ! what had it done.

Had the hat been a gun,

And loaded with powder and ball.

XXIV

Thus by giving them rope.

They have answer’d our hope,

And their line is now brought to an end.
The Doctor’s just cause,

For the Queen and the laws.

The Church’s true sons may defend.

XXV

But as it is common,

When death men doth summon.

For life to make efforts in vain ;

Their impotent malice
Hath made some faint sallies,

But now dead, may they ne’re rise again.

Brit. Mus. 1876. f. 1 (56),

APPENDIX IV

SCOTCH-CLOATH,

OR

Occasional-Conformity

Occasionally as we discourst
Of State, and Church and Nation,

Occasionally we took to view
That engine call’d Occasion.

Occasion fram’d for nothing else.
But to Occasion mischief :

A cloak to cover hypocrites.

Of whom the devil is chief.

Occasion for a loop-hole serves,
Whenever there’s Occasion

To leave plain-dealing in the lurch,
And fly to dear evasion.

The Jesuit may hang himself.

And his equivocation :

That fusty ware’s not thrown aside,
Occasion’s all the fashion.

Some sophisters of late devis’d
This new trick call’d Occasion,

By which they have refin’d upon
All former reformation.

312

SCOTCH-CLOATH

313

Dull martyrs spilt their blood in vain,
For want of this device Sir,

By this they might have Heathens been,
And Christians in a trice Sir.

Occasion more faces hath,

Upon Occasion surely,

Than any canting Quaker makes.

When he holds forth demurely.

True Scot upon Occasion

Can look like English Bishop,

And so impose with noise and tone,

On all that come to his shop.

Occasion can make a man.

With little or no trouble,

Sincere, as who acts Cat in Pan,

And honest as Tom Double.

Occasion permits some men
Occasionally to lye Sir, ’

And practise things that are too vile
For such as you and I Sir.

Occasionally they shall conform,
Occasionally dissent Sir,

Occasionally take an oath,

To break it with intent Sir.

Occasionally shall go to Church,
Occasionally to Meeting,

Occasionally betray the Lord,

While they like Judas greet him.

814

APPENDIX IV

Occasionally deny Him too,

In open view of men Sir,

And where’s the harm ? for when ’tis fit,
They own Him can agen Sir.

Occasionally communicate,

Occasionally refrain Sir,

But constantly communicate
When ’twill Occasion gain Sir.

When ’twill Occasion geudly men
To Parliament to ride — a,

And there with great sincerity
To take Occasion’s side — a,

On such Occasions they can kneel,

Like rankest idolaters,

But turn once serv’d, and place obtain’d,
No stiffer idol-haters.

Thus Occasionally for God they are.

And Occasionally for Devil ;
Occasionally for good again.

Occasionally for evil.

• Occasionally for Heaven bound.
Occasionally for Hell Sir,

But surely ’twill be sad to have
Occasion there to dwell Sir.

London : Printed in the Year, 1711. [Price Id.]

Brit. Mus., 1876. f. 19 (20)

APPENDIX V

A

FABLE

OF THE

Widow and her Cat.

A Widow kept a favourite Cat,

At first a gentle creature ;

But when he was grown sleek and fat,

With many a mouse, and many a rat,

He soon disclos’d his nature.

The Fox and he were friends of old,

Nor cou’d they now be parted ;

They nightly slunk to rob the fold.

Devour’d the lambs, the fleeces sold,

And Puss grew lion-hearted.

He scratch’d her maid, he stole the cream.
He tore her best lac’d pinner ;

No chanticleer upon the beam,

Nor chick, nor duckling ’scapes, when Grim
Invites the Fox to dinner.

The Dame full wisely did decree,

For fear he shou’d dispatch more.

That the false wretch shou’d worry’d be :

But in a sawcy manner he

Thus speech’d it like a L[echme]re.

“ Must I, against all right and law.

Like pole-cat vile be treated ?

I ! who so long with tooth and claw

Have kept domestick mice in awe,

And foreign foes defeated !

316

APPENDIX V

“ Your golden pippins, and your pies,
How oft have I defended ?

’Tis true, the pinner which you prize
I tore in frolick ; to your eyes
I never harm intended.

“ I am a Cat of honour ” — •“ Stay,”
Quo’ she, “ no longer parley ;
Whatever you did in battle slay,

By law of arms became your prey ;

I hope you won it fairly.

“ Of this we’ll grant you stand acquit,
But not of your outrages ;

Tell me, perfidious ! was it fit
To make my cream a perquisite,

And steal, to mend your wages ?

“ So flagrant is thy insolence,

So vile thy breach of trust is,

That longer with thee to dispense,
Were want of pow’r, or want of sense :
Here, Towzer ! — do him justice.”

The Ashley ^Library.

Prior’s Works, 1907, ii. 382.

APPENDIX VI

THE

Description of Dunkirk

WITH

Squash’s and Dismal’s
OPINION

How easily Prince Eugene may retake it, and
many other matters of the last Importance.

HARLEY at length has reaped the fame,

His father sow’d in actions just,

And rais’d his family a name
Renown’d for faithfulness in trust.

Dunkirk to save for England’s good
Sir Edward strove with might and main,

’Which without cost, and without blood.

His son dos gloriously regain.

Our Whigs are mad, the Dutch repine,

The Germans gnash their teeth to see
His measures crown’d in each design,

In spite of their inveteracie.

All Britain by his actions knows
Her friends from such as are her foes,

For patriots are by actions shown
As by their fruits the trees are known.

Thus Harley’s deeds are great and good.

Not chargeable nor stain’d with blood ;

So that his wisdom’s better far
Than Malbro’s swords and guns in war.

3X7

318

APPENDIX VI

Since Oxford's wisdom Dunkirk won,

A work too great for Fighting John,

And France so long declar’d a foe
To peace, her love of peace dos show,

And proves in treaties she’s sincere
Now knaves and rebels disappear.

For none but idiots would trust
The coveteous and the unjust.

But when such enemies they have
Like Harley loyal, Ormond brave,
Dunkirk the richest gem in France
They yield, that peace they may advance.
The Dutch therein to see our banners
Display’d, begin “to mend their manners,
To eat their words and stink for fear,

And own in the wrong box they were
To treat great Ormond as they’ve done
And lye i’ th’ face of the bright sun.

First the half charge o’th’ war’s too sore.
Next they can pay the whole and more,
And in contempt of Heaven and Anne
Prevaricate with God and man.

As snug at roost as sets a Pullet,

Eugene on cock-horse fears no bullet.

One leg o’er’s saddle-pommel throws,

- With snuff sets charging of his nose,

As safe behind his horse’s head
As any Crispin in a shed.

Yet he himself for all his cunning
Much fears our English way of gunning,
And finding he has been mistaken
Grows complaisant to save his bacon.

But th’ other day in height of pride
The English thus he did deride,

They send a warlike Plenipo
To make a peace and for a show

DESCRIPTION OF DUNKIRK

319

(As if Dutch limits they’d extend)

A peaceful general they send.

For all Eugene is grown so witty,

The little man must change his ditty.

When he shall know from France and Spain
How much for Britain’s good we gain ;

For one pacifick grand Campaign
Shall do great Britain far more good
Then all that cost us so much blood :

When homebred vipers without measure
Made prey and plunder of our treasure,

And everything was wrong or right
Claim’d as one subject’s perquisite.

Eugene shall own all this is true,

Repent and beg our pardon too ;

Or he and mercenary bands

Shall have the lash from Villars hands.

And then reswing’d to common sense
Fly to brave Ormonde for defence.

Not longer shall our Whiggs make boast
That Dunkirk’s but a butter’d toast
And scarce will serve (mark but their spleen)
To make a breakfast for Eugene.

Eugene will take’t, cries Squash, by Mars,

As easily as **** his **** ;

Which I can the more safely swear
Since I and my dear lord were there,

Like chimney sweepers drest that we
Might with our dismal hopes agree ;

But tears gush’t from my eyes in floods
To see my lord was in the suds,

And that his face wellwash’d at last.
Renew’d its shallow brownish east.

Which made him known ; thus all our hopes
Of gathering flourishes and tropes.

Without ladders without ropes,

APPENDIX VII

To Mr. Sheridan
On his “ Art of Punning ”

Had I ten thousand mouths and tongues,
Had I ten thousand pair of lungs,

Ten thousand skulls with brains to think,
Ten thousand standishes of ink,

Ten thousand hands and pens to write,
Thy praise, I’d study day and night.

Oh ! may thy work for ever live
(Dear Tom a friendly zeal forgive) ;

May no vile miscreant saucy cook
Presume to tear thy learned book,

To singe his fowl for nicer guest,

Or pin it on the turkey’s breast.

Keep it from pasty bak’d or flying,

From broiling steak, or fritters frying,
From lighting pipe, or making snuff.

Or casing up a feather muff,

From all the several ways the grocer —
Who to the learned world’s a foe, Sir —
Has found in twisting, folding, packing,
His brains and ours at once a racking,
And may it never curl the head
Of either living block or dead ;

Thus when all dangers they have past,
Your leaves, like leaves of brass, shall last

321

21

322

APPENDIX VII

No blast shall from a critic’s breath,

By vile infection, cause their death.

Till they in flames at last expire,

And help to set the world on fire.

Nichols, 1779.

APPENDIX VIII

The BANK thrown down.

To an Excellent New Tune.

Pray, what is this Bank of which the town rings ?
The banks of a river I know are good things,

But a pox o’ those banks that choke up the springs.
Some mischief is brewing, the project smells rank,
To shut out the river by raising the bank.

The dams and the weirs must all be your own,

You get all the fish, and others get none,

We look for a salmon, you leave us a stone.

But thanks to the House, the projectors look blank,
And thanks to those members that kick’d down the
batik.

This bank is to make us a new paper mill.

This paper they say, by the help of a quill,

The whole nation’s pockets with money will fill.

But we doubt that our purses will quickly grow lank,
,If nothing but paper comes out of this bank.

’Tis happy to see the whole kingdom in rags,

For rags will make paper, and Pa-ba-ba-bags,
This paper will soon make us richer than Craggs.
From a bo-bo-bo-boy he pursues his old hank,
And now he runs mad for a ba-ba-ba-bank.

323

324

APPENDIX VIII

Oh ! then but to see how the beggars will vapour.

For beggars have rags and rags will make paper,

And paper makes money, and what can be cheaper ?
Methinks I now see them so jovial and crank,

All riding on horseback to hell and the bank.

But the cobbler was angry, and swore he had rather,

As they did in old times, make money of leather,

For then he could coin and could cobble together ;

And then he could pay for the liquor he drank
With the scrap of a sole, and a fig for the bank.

By a parliament-man when the farmer was told,

That paper would quickly be dearer than gold,

He wonder’d for how much an inch ’twould be sold :
Then plodding, he thought on a whimsical prank
To turn to small money a bill on the bank.

For nicely computing the price by retail,

He found he could purchase two tankards of ale
With a scrap of bank paper the breadth of his nail ;

But the tapster well cudgell’d him both side and
flank,

And made him to curse the poor innocent bank.

The ghost of old D-mer, who left not Ms betters.

When it heard of a bank appear’d to his debtors.

And lent them for money the backs of his letters :

His debtors they wonder’d to find him so frank,

For old Nick gave the papers the mark of the bank.

In a Chancery Bill your attorney engages,

For so many six-pences, so many pages,

But six-pence a letter is monstrous high wages :

Those that dropp’d in the South-Sea discover’d this
plank,

By which they might swimmingly land on a bank.

THE BANK THROWN DOWN 325

But the squire he was cunning and found what they
meant,

That a pack of sly knaves should get fifty per cent,
While his tenants in paper must pay him his rent :

So for their quack-bills he knows whom to thank,

For those are but quacks, who mount on a bank.

Dublin : Printed by John Harding in Molesworth-
Court.

Brit. Mus. 839. m. 23 (93).

Trim Coll. Dubl. Lib. Press A. 7. 6 (2).
Gilbert Lib. Newenham Pamph. 1 (28).

APPENDIX IX

The First of April:

A

POEM.

Inscrib’d to Mrs. E. C.

This morn the God of Wit and Joke,

Thus to his choir of Muses spoke :

“ Go, Sisters Nine, into that cabin,

Where most true sons of Phoebus ha’bin ;
Each take a child into her care.

There’s one for each and one to spare ;
Tho’ there’s a boy whom a lord 1 chooses.
Who is as good as all the Muses ;

And beauteous Bess a differ’nt case is,

For she belongs to all the Graces ;

Divide the rest, but then take care,

Ye don’t fall out about the heir.”

They dropp’d low court’sies, one and all
And took their progress tow’ rdsTjOughgall.
Apollo laugh’d till he was sick.

That he had served the prudes a trick.

“ With due submission to the god,”
Thalia said, “ ’tis somewhat odd,

We all shou’d march on this occasion,

And not leave one for invocation.

Poets till they grow hoarse may bawl,

And not a Muse will hear their call :

Besides to me this seems a bubble,

’Tis all to save their mother trouble ;

1 Anglesey.

326

THE FIRST OF APRIL

327

FU warrant she’s some flaunting dame,
Regardless of her house and fame ;

When we come there we’ll stand unseen,
T’observe her management within.”

They peep’d and saw a lady there
Pinning on coifs and combing hair ;

Soft’ning with songs to son or daughter.

The persecution of cold water.

Still pleas’d with the good-natur’d noise,

And harmless frolics of her boys ;

Equal to all in care and love.

Which all deserve and all improve.

To kitchen, parlour, nursery flies
And seems all feet, and hands, and eyes.

No thought of hers does ever roam,

But for her squire when he’s from home ;

And scarce a day, can spare a minute
From husband, children, wheel or spinnet.

The Muses when they saw her care,

Wonder’d the god had sent them there.

And said “ His worship might ha’ told us.

This house don’t want, nor will it hold us.

We govern here ! where she presides
With virtue, prudence, wit besides ;

A wife as "good as heart cou’d wish one.

What need we open our commission.

There’s no occasion here for us.

Can we do more than what she does.

Thalia now began to smoke,

That all this business was a joke.

“ Sisters,” said she, “ my life I’ll lay,

Ye have forgot this month and day —

’Tis a fair trick, by ancient rules —

The god has made us April fools.”

Royal Irish Academy. 24. C. 32.
Wilde, Last Years, p. 172.

APPENDIX X

JOVE’S RAMBLE :

A

TALE

Shewing how the

MOON was made of a GREEN CHEESE

That gods sometimes, incognito,

Convers’d with mortals long ago,

(As by my grandam I’ve been told,

The king and cobler did of old,)

Is what I rather will suppose.

Than prove, since logick is but prose.

Believe ye therefore, that one night,

Ere moon was made to give us light.

“ Before the moon was made — That’s pleasant,”
Some forward critic crys. At present
I beg your leave, Sir, to go on : -

You shall be satisfied anon.

Well, Jove, it seems, had now patrol’d
All day ; and hungry, wet and cold
In such an ancient night was trudging,

To find some house and ask for lodging.

At length a mastiff-dog he heard,

Rending his throat, in farmer’s yard.

His godship, long ’twixt hope and fear,

At last took courage, and drew near ;

When strait the dog, whether by smell
These animals a god can tell,

328

JOVE’S RAMBLE

329

Who knows, however, fawn’d upon him,

And wagg’d his tail as if he’d known him.
Thus pious elephants we see
Adore the host with bended knee ;

And carriers’ horses view with dread
The devil driving without head.

By which examples we may ken
Some beasts are as devout as men.

The farmer now came to the door,

An honest civil man, tho’ poor.

And kindly ask’d him his request,

Jove told his ease, and spoke his best :

Had Hermes at his elbow stood,

Perhaps his speech might have been good,
But setting that at once aside,

Jove spoke, and Dobson thus reply’d.

“ Why truly friend, I have had warning,

I miss’d my cocks and hens this morning ;
Within my barn four gypsies lay
Last night, and stole them all away.

But it were hard to judge, I trow.

That all are bad, ’cause some are so.

So pray walk in ” — He set a chair,

Begg’d pardon for his homely fare ;

Such fare no god had ever seen.

The remnant of a cheese call’d green.

Then the good man a faggot lighted,

To cheer the stranger thus benighted,

And bid him dry his dropping clothes,

And warm Lis feet, and toast his nose.

Jove tho’ he lik’d not much the food,

Was hungry, and the will was good ;

So he e’en fell on without sparing,

And strok’d poor Tray, and gave him paring.
They talk’d of harvests, and of rain ;

The gypsy’s tale was told again ;

330

APPENDIX X

And then the guest to please his host
Call’d to my landlord for a toast ;

“ Your daughters, come, they must be pretty ”
And then he laught, and then grew witty :

All which we out of modesty,

For fear of spoiling, will pass by :

But could I sing with Pindar’s vein,

Or lyriek D’Urfey’s loftier strain,

The farmer’s ale would claim a song.

As smooth as oil, as brandy strong.

Now Jove to bed he e’en may go,

And dream of any, you know who,

The farmer’s daughter if he please,

Or lie awake and curse the fleas ;

For spite of fate, where poultry come
These vermin will be troublesome.

Next morn came Dobson e’er ’twas light ;

“ I hope you’ve rested well last night.”

Jove yawn’d, and thank’d him, you may think,
Altho’ he never slept a wink.

Then thus went on, “ Know, honest man,

’Tis Jupiter you entertain,

Who shall your services reward
By miracle as yet unheard.

First, then, your cheese shall upward rise,

And gain a station in the skies,

Where shining, with amazing light,

It travellers shall guide by night.

And when it shall, with few nights wearing,

Be worn out to the very paring,

It shall again, by just degrees,

Increase till it be grown full cheese :

Besides, as peculiar grace.

You in your cheese shall have a place,

And on your back a bush shall bear.

The fasces of your empire there.

JOVE’S RAMBLE

331

Lastly, shall Tray, your trusty friend.

Be your companion to the end ;

Of dogs terrestrial, sovereign lord.

By solemn midnight bark ador’d.”

Now, how they got up to the skies —

But there they are, let that suffice.

Hence, with true jest, ’tis often said.

The moon of a green cheese is made ;

Tho’ the craz’d scholar, in that round,

A world inhabited has found.

And gravely fancies that he sees
Mountains, seas, rivers in a cheese.

Dublin : Printed in Big Ship-street, 1723.

Trim Coll. Dubl. Lib. Press, A. 7, 6 (17).

APPENDIX XI

UNDER SPUR-LEATHERS

The Drapier’s Head is associated with the following
pieces :

The Donore Ballad. Inscrib’d to the Praise of the
worthy M. B. Drapier. Written on the occasion
of putting up his Head in Truck-street.

The Drapier Anatomized : A Song.

A New Song Sung at the Club at Mr. Taplin’s,
The Sign of the Drapier’s Head in Truck-street.

A Second Song, Sung at the Club at Mr. Taplin’s.

The Drapier’s Ballad.

A Congratulatory Poem on Dean Swift’s Return to
Town. By a Member of the Club, held at Mr.
Taplin’s in Truck-street, October 7th, 1725.

Samuel Owens would appear to have written the follow-
ing pieces :

Remarks upon the Report of the Committee of the
Lords of his Majesty Privy-Council in Relation
to Wood’s Half-pence. By Samuel Owens,
Lock-Smith (1724).

Vulcan’s Speech spoken the 12th of August 1725 to
his Excellency the Lord Carteret, on Occasion of
the Contest between the Smiths and Taylors
about Precedency in their March.

The Auricula.

An Elegy on the much Lamented Death of Mr. John
Lock of Athgoe who departed this Life the Second
of November 1747. Written by Samuel Owens,
Lock-Smith.

332

UNDER SPUR-LEATHERS 333

Robert Ashton would appear to have written the follow-
ing pieces :

A Congratulatory Poem to the Reverend Dean Swift.
By Robert Ashton (1725).

A Poem in Honour of the Loyal Society of Journey-
men Shoemakers, who are to Dine at the Castle
in Castle-street, on Monday October the 25th,
1725. Being the Anniversary of St. Crispin.
Written by R. Ashton, one of the Brethren.

A Poem in Honour of the Loyal Society of Journey-
men Shoemakers, who are to dine at the Bull’s
Head in Fishamble-street on Tuesday, October
the 25th 1726, being the Anniversary of St.
Crispin. Written by R. Ashton, S.M., a Member
of the Society.

A Satyr on the Journeymen Taylors. Written by
R. A., Shoemaker.

A Poem on the Birth-Day of Her late Majesty
Queen Anne of Ever Glorious Memory. Dedicated
to the Reverend Dean Swift. Writ by Rob.
Ashton (1726/7).

APPENDIX XII

BLUESKIN’S BALLAD.

To the Tune of Packington’s Pound.

1

Ye fellows of Newgate whose fingers are nice
In diving in pockets and cogging of dice ;

Ye sharpers so rich who can buy off the noose,

Ye honester poor rogues who die in your shoes,
Attend and draw near,

Good news you shall hear,

How honest Wild’s throat was cut from ear to ear ;
Now Blueskin’s sharp penknife has set you at ease.
And ev’ry man round me may rob if he please.

2

When to the Old Bailey this Blueskm was led,

He held up his hands, his indictment was read.

Loud rattled his chains, near him honest Wild stood,
For full forty pounds was the price of his blood ;
Then hopeless of life,

He drew his penknife,

And made a sad widow of honest Wild’s wife ;

But forty pounds paid her, her grief shall appease
And ev’ry man round me may rob if he please.

3

Some say there are courtiers of highest renown
Who steal the king’s gold and leave him but a crown

334

BLUESKIN’S BALLAD

335

Some say there are peers and some parliament men
Who meet once a year to rob courtiers again ;

But let them have their swing
To pillage the king,

And get a blue ribbon instead of a string ;

For Blueskin’s sharp etc.

4

Knaves of old, to hide guilt by their cunning inventions.
Call briberies grants, and plain robbery pensions,
Physicians and lawyers who take their degrees
To be learned rogues, call their pilferings fees ;

Since this happy day
Now ev’ry one may

Rob (as safe as in office) upon the high-way ;

For etc.

5

Some rob in the customs, some cheat in th’exeise
But he who robs both is esteemed most wise ;
Churchwardens who always have dreaded the halter
As yet only venture to steal from the altar ;

But now to get gold
They may be more bold,

And rob on the high- way since honest Wild’s cold ;
For etc.

6

Some by public revenues which pass thro’ their hands
Have purchas’d clean houses and bought dirty lands ;
Some to steal from a charity think it no sin,

Which at home (says the proverb) does always begin ;
If ever you be
Assign’d a trustee,

Treat not orphans like Masters in the Chancery ;

For etc.

836 APPENDIX XII

7

What a pother is here with Woods and his brass,

Who would modestly make a few halfpennies pass ;

The patent is good, and the precedent’s old,

For Diomede changed his copper for gold ;

But if Ireland despise
The new halfpennies,

More safely to rob on the road I advise,

For Blueskin’s, etc.

Printed in the Year 1724-5.

Brit. Mus. 839. m. 23 (31).

The assault which Blueskin, otherwise Joseph Blake,
the companion of Jack Sheppard, made on Jonathan
Wild, the receiver of stolen goods and informer, was
not fatal. Blake was hanged on 11 November, 1724,
and Wild pursued his ordinary occupations for some
months and did not die until 24 May, 1725, when he
also was executed.

Another version of the ballad was published in
London [Brit. Mus. 1876, f. 1 (74)]. It appears to be
a revised form of the Dublin version.

APPENDIX XIII

RIDING THE FRANCHISES OF DUBLIN

The Dublin Jubilee, a new Poem ascrib’d to The
Rt. Honourable Lord Mayor of this City on His
Riding the Franchises, August the 12th 1725.
Accompanied by All the Corporations.

A Poem on the Riding the Franchises.

The New Order and Procession of the Riding the
Franchises (ironical).

A Second Poem on the Riding the Franchises (ironical).
The Order of the Procession of the Journeymen
Builders, Plaisterers, Painters, and Free-Masons.
To which is added a Poem suitable to the Occa-
sion. By Henry Nelson, Bricklayer, a Member
of the Society.

22

337

APPENDIX XIV .

HARDING'S RESURRECTION

FROM

HELL upon EARTH

Forth from my dark and dismal Room ,
Behold to Life again I come ;

By long confinement, poor John Harding
Has hardly left a single Farthing ;

He’s brought to such a wretched Pass,
He’d almost take the English Brass ;
Begs that his Customers would use
His Pamphlets , Elegies , and News .

My Letters all, that silent lay,

Are glad again to see the Day ;

See, from their Cases how they rattle, "
Like Armies drawn in Ranks of Battle ;
The CAPITALS, as being Great,

Before the Font advanc’d in State ;

The rest are Common Soldiers all,
Obedient to their GeneraVs call ;

Italick , Romany and Long Primer ,
Diff’ring like Tory, Whig, and Trimmer ,
Distinguish’d by their Forms and Size ,
Some sink beneath, while others rise ;
Others to neither side inclin’d,

In close Parenthesis confin’d ;

And since for neither they’ve Regard,

I think indeed they might be spar’d ;

338

HARDING’S RESURRECTION

339

Some for the Greatness of their Station
Have got a Note of Admiration !

Others are trench’d within their Clauses ,

As I for LIBELS — as the LAW says ;

For Stops and Points I take to be
To Them, what is a Jail to Me.

Some cloath’d in black, and some in red.
Some with, and some without a Head ;
Others with Tails advance among
The rest, but we supply the Tongue.

Now look Abroad among Mankind,

Exact the Parallel you’ll find,

By Interest guided, or by Rage,

In Peace they join, in Wars engage ;

Some high, some low, some great, some little.
The Letters fit us to a Tittle ;

And when we’ve met our final Doom,

Don’t they pursue us to our Tomb ?

Upon the Whole, sure Man had better.
Ne’er known Himself, or known a Letter ;
This I experienc’d to my Cost,

For All I Got by them I Lost ;

And nothing now can make Amends,

But my old Customers and Friends.

Faulkner, .1751.

APPENDIX XV

A

SATYR

Canit, ante Victor iam Triumphum.

Most Reverend Dean, pray cease to Write ;
Nor longer dwell on Things so Trite ;

Teize not unto thy Feeble Aid,

Each Grace and Heliconian Maid ;

Apollo’s tired, Minerva Swears,

She never more will hear thy Prayers ;

And to speak Truth, I think it odd is,

To Nauseate, thus, The God and Goddess ;
To Ditto it, daily, through the Town,

And Write, and Write our Spirits down.

Great Sir, its own’d, you well behav’d ;

Your Skin is whole, your Country’s sav’d ;

The Grand Dispute ! you’ve made an End on’t
Our State and Church are Independent.

The Weather’s good, and Phoebus Smiles,

On This, just, as on other Isles ;

In Gold we wallow ; But, nor Brass,

Thank God, or Silver current pass ;

Priests bent, and People are, on Gains,

No Politicks disturb our Brains.

No Popish Plot, nor Wars Alarms
Our Warlike Genius wakes to Arms.

340

A SATYR

341

Long since, the Muses Nine were seen,

To take their leave of College-Green ;

The Graces too, are either Dead,

Or, Opiated, are gone to Bed,

And (unless Fame does much bely ’em,)
Dos’d, sleeps Prcepos. Cum sociis, by ’em ;
No Midnight Hours consume the Taper ;
Cheaply are sold Pen, Ink and Paper.

Science and Arts are at a Stand ;

Were’t not for Hel — m’s Slight of Hand,

For Sherry’s Quibles, and thy Quill,

The Dusty Press wou’d stand, quite, still ;

A Stop to Literature be put.

And the Musceum’ Gates be shut :

And, as it happen’d, once at Paris,

(Nor fetch’d, the Simile, too far is,)

With Milk, the Maids, so jeune et Tendre,
Wou’d cry about, Latin A vendre.

But pray. Great Sir, (our Isle’s Apollo,)
From what dull Logic, does it follow,

That, ’cause in Writing you have Skill,

’ Can joke off Hand, have Wit at Will,

That a whole People you must cully.

And feed* with nought but Chapon Bouilli :
And make us all for Idiots pass
With Foreign Nations : Wood and Brass
Being all the Subjects, that you write on.
And squander Wit, and vent your Spite on :
Unless that, how and then, you deign
To praise your self, in humble Strain.

Stop then thy Hand, my dear Dean Bluff ;
Believe me Sir, you’ve done enuff :

Ay, and much more, a deal, than any
Poet before ; wrote against Money.

342

APPENDIX XV

Then, let us chaw, no more, your Crambe ;

No such disgustful Thing there can be ;

Thy Saint ordain’d not such Lent-Diet ;

His Broad-fac’d Mob’s Mouth’s shut and quiet :
Snarlerus does no longer press
In fervent Pray’r for thy Success :

No longer frown, no longer flatter ;

The Saint, again, is turn’d The Satyr.

Ev’n Prcecox, who did, once, abhor thee,

Has ceas’d, at length, to stutter for thee.

And I must say (what e’er be ment)

Thy Works are no great Complement,

For Learned Carteret to lay before him,

Et spes el Ratio Studiorum.

Nor do I see the wondrous Glory,

You’re like to get, by all this Story ;

You Print, just as you Preach and Pray,

No mortal ever yet said, Nay,

You write, a while ; and then write on ;

Sole Arbiter of Pro & Con.

No Knight attempting to oppose
The Olive Dean and Black-guard Foes.

And you’ll be, fully, answer’d, when,

For want of Brass, your Huzza-Men
Find Butter-Milk nor Bought, nor sold here.

Which happen may, e’re you’re much Older.

And so Adieu.

PRINTED in the YEAR, Mdccxxv.

Brit. Mus. 839. m. 23 (59).

343

SWIFT TO SMEDLEY
A

LETTER

FROM

D. S 1 to D. S y.

Quid de quoque Viro , eui dicas, sepe caveto.

Dear Dean, if e’re again you Write,

Beware of Subjects you call Trite,

For Satyr now’s so common grown
That ev’ry S— th, and Type in Town
Have teiz’d, by calling to their Aid
The Graces and the other Maid ;

That, Faith, I think, there scarce is Room
For you or I to crave a Boon ;

But, Yet, you’ll find by what will follow,

That I’m Befriended by Appollo,

And that by all I e’re did hear
Minerva ne’er an Oath did Swear
Unless by you she was Entreated
When first of Griz, you Grafton reated.

But as to DITTO’T thro ’ the Town,

You never did, for ’ twould not down.

My Country’s sav’d, as you have shown,
And Skin’s yet whole, I needs must own.

And if by Chance I should deny it

I’m sure Old Jour you’d not stand by it ;

And if you should, we’d ne’er have end on’t,
Both Church and State, being still dependent.
The Weather’s Fair, nay, that is true.

But what is it to me or you ?

Or if ’tis true. Great Phoebus smiles
On this, as upon other Isles,

I know no Reason at this Time
We should them Quote, unless for Rhime.

844

APPENDIX XV

In Gold, Perhaps, my Friend you Wallow

And W d’s ditto Pills do Swallow,

Being possitive there is no P st

So bent on Gains, Ju ro by C est

As you Dr. S y are, being sure

The Coyn’s Currant and Mettal Pure.

If Wood’s Coin should ’mongst Us pass
Tho’ now I’m poor I them might pass
As well as you, for a Midas :

Then as to War’s Alarms I pray
What is’t that you or I’ve to say,

(Who ought for Peace and Plenty Pray.)
Science and Art you say at stand are,

How that can be, when you at hand are,

I can’t Conjecture, for Dr. D n

You hate to see ought that seems Clean
Since Cindercola first you Courted
And with the youthful Damsel sported.

Hel am does truly Wit command

And surely Writes with slight of Hand.

For Sherry’s Quibbles, and thy Skill,

They are as once, and Idem still.

Since I’m Apollo stil’d by you,

When e’re I’gin, you should pursue
And boldly force the winged Quill
Unto the utmost Bounds of Skill,

And never turn upon thy Master
Who sav’d thee from a great Disaster.

What’s meant by Chapoon I can’t guess

And making some for Ideots pass

Unless i’ th’ Answer of his Grace,

Which if right ta’en, and but good Luck-hold
By the horned Sun, he sure meant C — — d,
Not saying, lest I go too far.

That you an Actceon was, or are.

SWIFT TO SMEDLEY

845

Now let’s no more caress thy French,

Nor Cinder cola, charming Wench !

Lest my Mobb's Mouth, being seldom quiet,
Should them Ordain for Lenten Diet.

Snarlerus next, I’m sure, has need
Of Prayers, that he might well succeed,

And bravely Precox might oppose
Cum multis aliis (all his Foes)

When they’re to pull him by the Nose,

And by the Orders of his Betters
Have him confin’d in Iron Fetters ;

Now you’ve done right. No Knight attempting
To oppose the D- — n your-self Exempting

Because no But B k Gown’d Foe,

As when Time serves, you more shall know.

FINIS.

Brit. Mus. 839. m. 23 (76).

APPENDIX XVI

A Christmas Box for
NAMBY PAMBY,

OR,

A Second part to the same Tune.

Ludit <& Inania capiat. Hor.

Now the Day is almost peeping.
What ! is Namby yet a sleeping ?
Prince of all harmonious Jingle,
Whether double, whether single,
And of soft bewitching Numbers,
Gently causing gentle slumbers,
And of Quibble, Pun, and Riddle,
Rise and string thy tuneful Fiddle ;
Rise, compose a Christmas Carol
And receive the bending Laurel,
Tho’ we cannot hear the Thrush,
Nor the Linet in the Bush,

Nor the kind refreshing Breeze,
Softly whisp’ring thro’ the Trees ;
Tho’ Florella has withdrawn
All her Beauties from the lawn.
Locking up her Cabinet,

Pink, and Rose, and Violet,

Tulips, Daffidels, and Daizies,

And whatever Namby pleases ;

346

NAMBY PAMBY

347

You may sing of Cook-maids nasty,

And of Pudding, Pye and Pasty ;

And of Dumpling, Tart, and Custard,

And of Turkies, Geese, and Mustard ;

And of Kitchen wenches toiling.

And of Pots and Posnets boiling ;

And’ of Spits in order turning,

And of Beef and Mtxtton burning ;

And of Jacky Horner dipping
Bits of Bread into the Dripping ;

And of sprightly City Prentice,

Feeding upon dainty dainties,

Cakes and Ale and other Cheer,

Christmas comes but once a year :

And of Bully, without Riches,

Pledging Coat and Vest and Breeches ;
And of straggling sparks aiid Mummers,
Watchmen, Bell-men, Fidlers, Drummers,
With a Rat, Tat, Tat Tat too,

Having nothing Else to Do ;

And of Porters, Cits and Weavers,
Cobblers, Smiths, and penny-shavers.
Without Rhime or Reason Drinking,

Not of Wives or Children thinking,

Tho’ they had so many warnings.
Spending all their Weekly earnings &c.
Those and other themes we meet,

Daily passing thro’ the Street,

Gently tag’d with gentle Rhimes
Must Amuse the Gentle times.

And make up a Deal of Verse,

Fit for Namby to Rehearse ;

“ On the next returning Spring,

“ When again the Linets Sing ”

You may treat of other themes.

Woods and Groves and Purling Streams,

848

APPENDIX XVI

Pebbles thro’ the Channel Straying,

Bubbles on the Surface playing,

And of Rivers still in Motion,

Smoothly gliding to the Ocean,

And of Hills and lofty Mountains,

Pearly Dew and Christal Fountains,

And of Cool Refreshing Shades,

And the Gay enamel’d Meads,

Thus in Summer or in Winter,

You may still Employ the Printer.

FINIS.

Brit. Mus. 1890. e. 5 (128).

APPENDIX XVII

To the Honourable Mr. D.T. Great Pattern of Piety,
Charity, Learning, Humanity, good Nature, Wisdom,
good Breeding, Affability, and one most eminently
distinguished for his Conjugal Affection.

Ex Despauterio 1

O Tite Tute Tati tibi tanta Tyranne tulisti.

What strange disorder often springs
From very light and trivial things !

Which makes philosophers conjecture
They are from Providence a lecture.

To check our vanity and pride,

And many other faults beside.

This gave the first creation rise
Of maggots, insects, worms, and flies,

Of bugs, wasps, midges, mice and rats.

And barking curs, and spit-fire cats ;

That strive to shun them where you will.

There’s one or other at you still ;

No man escapes insidious vermin,

From coat of frieze to royal ermin ;

From the low joint-stool to the throne,

These plagues of Egypt favour none.

1 Joannes Despauterius (1460-1520), grammarian. The line,
a fragment of Ennius, is quoted by Despauterius in his treatise
* De Figuris,’ Commentarii, 1537, p. 613.

350

APPENDIX XVII

And now to paint the sev’ral ways.

Such trifles have such power to teize.

The lurking maggot, in your meat,

Destroys your appetite to eat.

Proceed to bed, that place of rest.

Lay down your head and do your best.

One little, skipping, sorry flea,

Can chase the god of sleep away.

The bug, that spawn of rotten wood,

Not only sucks, but taints your blood.

At length you seize the worthless prize.

You squeeze, he bursts, and bursting dies ;
But still a greater curse you find,

So strong a stink he leaves behind.

The crawling louse assails you next,

You grope, and grope, you fret, you’re vex’d,
This little speck of sweat and dirt,

Altho’ it cannot greatly hurt,

Yet still it makes you scratch and shrug,

As much as the adherent bug.

If none of these a rat or cat,

Or nibbling mouse, or buzzing gnat.

May come as you’re supinely laid,

And break the peace which sleep has made ;
So slight an accident destroys
The greatest of all human joys !

If to the fields you walk for air,

What num’rous squadrons meet you there.
Flies of all sorts, and hues you see,

From ev’ry ditch, and ev’ry tree.

Like dust in clouds, or powd’ring hail,

Your face on all sides they assail,

Eyes, cheeks, brows, lips, and chin, and hose,
Are all attack’d by swarming foes ;

You tap them with your hands in vain.

No sooner off, but on again ;

TO MR. D.T.

351

Such are the plagues of human life,

Doom’d ever thus to live in strife,

With things so much beneath our care.

To wage an everlasting war.

Canst thou, O man ! be vain and proud.

When this must be by all allow’d ;

One flea, one wasp, one fly, one drone,

Thy pow’rs of thinking can dethrone ;

If perch’d upon your lip, or brow,

Can banish what your thought just now,

Can break the lab’ring fancy’s chain,

And set your brains to work again.

What pain the riding traveller feels,

When barking curs are at his heels !

He stops, he turns, he stands at bay,

And frights them for a while away ;

But still they teize, and still pursue.

And keep the bounding steed in view,

Till one cur bites him to the bone,

And almost brings the rider down.

That case and his is just the same,

Who mounts upon the horse of Fame,

Some envious snarling curs pursue him.

With eager malice to undo him ;

’Till one more fierce than all, thro’ spite,

Comes up and gives his horse a bite,

The bouncing praneer kicks amain,

The rider holds a strait’ned rein.

Clings fast, until the horse has done,

The cur flies off, and he rides on.

Note, This Paper will be continued weekly, if due
Encouragment be given.

Dublin : Printed by S. Harding on the Blind-Key,
1725.

352

APPENDIX XVII

The following Fable is most humbly Inscribed to the
Honourable Mr. D. T. A most Extraordinary Personage,
Renowned for his great Quality, Charity, Hospitality,
Liberality, Civility, Piety, Affability, Dignity, Love to
Liberty, and Property, Facility of Speaking, Volubility
of Language, Activity, and Agility, with many other
Endowments which I reserve for the next Dedication.

0 Tite Tute Tati tibi tanta Tyranne tulisti. Despaut.

THE SICK LION AND THE ASS

A lion sunk by time’s decay,

Too feeble grown to hunt his prey,
Observ’d his fatal hour draw nigh,

He droop’d and laid him down to die.
There came by chance a savage boar,

Who trembled oft to hear him roar.

But when he saw him thus distrest,

He tore and goar’d his royal breast.

A bull came next (ungen’rous foe),
Rejoic’d to find him fall’n so low,

And with his horny-armed head,

He aim’d at once to strike him dead,

He strikes, he wounds, he shocks in vain,
The lion still conceals his pain.

At length a base inglorious ass,

Who saw so many insults pass,

Came up and kick’d him in the side,

’Twas this that rais’d the lion’s pride.

He rous’d and thus he spoke at length.
(For indignation gave him strength).

Thou sorry, stupid, sluggish creature,
Disgrace and shame, and scorn of nature 1
You saw how well I could dispense.

With blows from beasts of consequence ;

TO MU. D.T.

35 $

They dignified the wounds they gave !

For none complain who feel the brave.

But you — the lowest of all brutes,

How ill your face with courage suits ;

What dulness in thy looks appears !

Thy hanging face ! thy slouching ears !

I’d rat'her far, (by Heav’n ’tis true)

Expire by these than live — by you ;

A kick from thee is double death !

I curse thee with my dying breath.

THE MORAL

Rebukes are easy from our betters,

From men of quality and letters.

But when low dunces will affront,

What man alive can stand the brunt ?

Dublin : Printed by Sarah Harding 1725.

Written on dor so in ink in British Museum copy : —

X) — x — the greatest of the great
D — x — the pillar of the state
X) — X — the ablest politician
D— T — the skilfulest physician
Of all the hero’s of antiquity
There never yet was one like D — y T — .

Brit. Mus. 1890. e. 5 (230) ; also 839. m. 23. (63).
Nat. Lib. Dubl., Thorpe Tracts, xii. 105-6.

A

FAREWELL TO THE WORLD

By the Honourable D

I

Farewel ye Gilded Follies pleasing Troubles,
Farewel ye honour’d Rags, the glorious bubble,

23

354

APPENDIX XVII

Fame’s but a hollow Eccho, Gold pure Clay,

Honour thy Darling, but of one short Day :

Beauty, the Eyes of Idol, but a Damask’d Skin,

State but a Golden Prison to live in ;

And Torture Free-born Minds, Embroidered Trains,
Meerly but Pageants for Proud swelling Veins :

And Blood allay’d to greatness, is alone '

Inherited, not purchas’d, n-ot our own ;

Fame, Honour, Beauty, State, Train, Blood, and birth.
Are but the fadeing Blossoms of the Earth.

II

I wou’d be great, but that the Sun doth still
Levil his Bays against the rising Hill.

I wou’d be high, but see the proudest Oak
Most subject to the rending Thund’ring stroak.

I wou’d be Rich, but see Men too unkind,

Dig in the Bowels of the Richest Mine.

I wou’d be Wise, but that I often see
The Fox suspected, while the Ass goes free.

I wou’d be Fair, but see the Fair and Proud,

Like the bright Sun, oft setting in a Cloud.

I wou’d be Poor, but see the humblest Grass
Still trampled on, by every unworthy Ass,

Rich hated, Wise suspected, Scorn’d if poor,

Great fear’d, Fear temp’d, high, still envy’d more :

I Wish all, but now I Wish for neither

Great, High, Rich, Wise, or Fair, Poor to be rather.

III

Wou’d the World now adopt me for her Heir,

Wou’d Beauty’s Queen, entitle me the Fair ;

Fame speak my Fortunes, Minium cou’d I view
ANGELS with India, what a speaking Eye,

A FAREWELL TO THE WORLD 355

mmand bare Heads, bow’d Knees, strike Justice dumb,
well, as Blind and Lame, or give a Tongue
' Stones by Epitaphs, be call’d great Master,
the loose Rhimes of every Poetaster.
u’d I be more tha,n any Man that lives ;

•eat. Fair, Rich, Wise, in all Superlatives,
it I most freely wou’d these Gifts resign,
len ever Fortune wou’d have made them mine ;
id hold one Minute of this Holy Leasure,

;yond the Riches of the empty Pleasure.

IV

r eleome pure thoughts, welcome ye silent Groves,
bese Guests, these Courts, my Soul most dearly loves ;
ow the Wing’d People of the Sky shall Sing
’y Cheerful Anthems to the gladsome Spring ;
Pray’r-Book now shall be my Looking-Glass,
a which I will Adore sweet Virtues Face :

[ere Dwells no hateful looks, no Palace cares,

To broken Vows dwell here, nor pale fac’d fears !

'hen here I’ll sit, and sigh my hot-love’s folly,
aid learn to effect an Holy Melancholy ;
md if Contentment be a Stranger then,

’ll never look for it, but in HEAVEN again.

CONCLUSION

Jirth it is a bragg, Glory a Blaze,

[Honour Earth’s Pomp, Riches a Gaze.

Fame is but a Wind, Beauty a Flower,

Pleasure a Dance, the World’s a Bower :

[n HEAVEN with thee, LORD let me be ;

In Earth my HEAVEN’S alone in Thee.

FINIS.

Dublin : Printed in the Year, 1725.

Brit. Mus. 1890. e. 5 (7).

APPENDIX XVIII .

EPIGRAMS ON WINDOWS
OF ENGLISH INNS

I. On a window at an Inn

II. At an Inn in England.

Hawkesworth, 1765.

III. On a window at the Four Crosses in the Watling-

street Road, Warwickshire.

Nichols, 1808.

IV. Another at Chester.

Faulkner, 1735.

V, Another at Chester.

VI. Another at Chester.

VII. Another at Holyhead.

VIII. Another Written upon a Window where tfrere was
no writing before.

Hawkesworth, 1765.

IX. On seeing Verses written upon^Windows at Inns.

X. Another.

XI. Another.

Faulkner, 1735.

366

APPENDIX XIX

AN EXCELLENT NEW SONG
To a good Old Tune

I Synge of a sermon a sermon of worth,

Which newly was printed, and newly come forth ;

A sermon of late
Which rais’d a debate,

And many opinions, of Church and of State :

It was made by a priest of six foot and more.

But the like of it, scarce has been heard of before.

Most are at a loss to find out his true meaning,

Whilst others of some dark design are complaining,
Some think he’s for Martin,

. Some for Jack his heart in,

But most do agree he’s for Peter, for certain :

O Synge who. won’t think thou wert bred at St.
Germains,

Who reads what opinions you’ve broach’d in -your
sermons.

Some say it is new, some say what is stranger,

That all you haye said is taken from Bangor :

Then looks it not oddly
T’extract from Ben'Hoadly
A scheme that seems Popish to all that are godly :

O Synge thou had’st better been hang’d in a rope,
Than thus to turn stickler for Rome and the Pope.

367

AN EXCELLENT NEW SONG

359

How-e’er he’s abus’d here, he’s sure that in Britain,
He’ll meet with applause both from Whiston and Ditton.
So S-nge be not **** on
By Whiston or Ditton,

He cares not what Irish folk say of what’s written :
Synge, Ditton and Whiston : Synge, Whiston and
Ditton :

Synge, **** on and **** on, Synge **** on and

Printed in the Year, MDCCXXYI.

Brit. Mus. 839. m, 23 (157).

APPENDIX XX

ELEGY

UPON

TIGER;

Her dead LADY’s Joy and Comfort,
Who departed this Life,

The last day of March, 1727.

To the great Joy of BRYAN,

That his Antagonist is gone.

AND is poor TIGER laid at last so low !

0 Day of Sorrow ! — Day of Dismal Woe !

Blood-Hounds , or Spaniels, Lap-Dogs ’tis all one.

When Death once Whistles — Snap — away they’re gone.
See how she lies, and hangs her Lifeless Ears,

Bath’d in her mournful LADY’S Flowing Tears !

Dumb is her Throat, and Wagless is her Tayl,

Doom’d to the Grave, to Death's Eternal Jayl 1

In a few Days this lovely Creature must

First turn to Clay, and then be Chang’d to Dust !

That Mouth which used its LADY’S Mouth to Lick,
Must Yield it’s Jaw-Bones to the Worms to Pick.

That Mouth which used the PARTRIGE-WINGE to
Eat

Must give it’s Palate to the Worms to Eat.

Methinks I see her now in CHARON’S Boat,

Bark at the Stygian Fish which round it Float ;

m

ELEGY UPON TIGER

361

While CERBERUS, Alarm’d to hear the Sound,

Makes Hell’s wide Concave Bellow all around.

She sees him not, but hears him thro’ the Dark,

And Valiantly returns him Bark for Bark.

But now she Trembels — tho ’ a Goast, she Dreads,

To see a Dog with three large Yawning Heads.

Spare her you Hell-Hounds, — ease your frightful Paws,
And let poor TIGER S[c]ap*e your furious Jaws.

Let her go safe to the Elyzian Plains,

Where Hylax barks among the Mantuan Swains ;

There let her Frisk about her new found Love,

She lov’d a Dog when she was here above.

The EPITAPH

Here lies beneath this Hollow Marble,

An Annimal cou’d Bark, or Warble.

Sometimes a Bitch, sometimes a Bird,

Cou’d eat a Tart, or eat a T

N.B. — She died in Puppy, and left two poor helples
Infants behind. And that Mrs. Sally, and Jane
jtnd Robin cryed three Days for.

Trin. Coll. Dubl. Lib. Press, A. 7 , 4 (115).

APPENDIX XXI

Spuddy’s Lamentation
For the Loss of her Collar,

Who was Deprived of it'the 12 th of April, 1728.

Bow Wou Wou.

A creature I, of flesh and blood,

A lady’s dog, my name is Spudd ;

My doleful case all men shall know,

Being fed and pamper’d, free from blow ;

My lady took what care she cou’d,

And often cried, “ Come hither Spudd :

Pray is it not a pretty creature ?

Look at its nose — so fine a feature —

My dog it shall have what it wants,

Tom, bring some water, see it pants ;

0 give my dear a bit of gizard,

It won’t eat wild-fowl, cunning wizard ;

But see the sense it has l I vow,

1 wou’d not give it for a cow.”

Thus Spuddy liv’d, with care attended.
By all the neighbours much befriended ;

She had a bit, a tender pat
From all that at the table sat ;

But now confus’d, with tears in eyes.

She tells ye that her lady dies ;

And e’er her lady’s funeral.

Drops off her master-general —

Good luck to squire, to me hard fate.

That they to him shou’d leave the plate ;

A dreadful day to me poor bitch,

That he to plate, had such an itch ;

362

SPUDDY’S LAMENTATION 363

I ne’er met hardship, nor rebuff,

The day they died, I got a cuff,

A cuff — I scarce cou’d bear, but must,

Now they are gone, and laid in dust ;

The man appear’d as if in dolor,

He call’d me ‘ Spudd, let’s see your collar ’.

I thought his goodness was so great.

Not to insist my collar’s plate.

Believ’d he more in mind had those
That lay in coffins last repose ;

But he insisting on his right,

Took collar, plate, and bid good-night :

All cried out * Shame ! ’ and thought a wonder.

To coax a beast, and then to plunder.

As grave a countenance he had,

As master when he whips a lad,

Or mother when she gives advice
To daughter that she may shun vice.

He said, ‘ Poor Spudd, your collar’s neat,

I’d have yourself to wear your plate.’

I’m satisfied of that, good Sir,

Tho’ bitch I am, I hate a cur.

That gave'my master such a wound,

Your usage in the thousand pound ;

And when you got it, bid Adieu,

To your papa, and sweet Kilbrew.

' My wish (’tis time to give you ease),

May your sweet collar ne’er want fleas,

And, since you’ve shewn your poor mean spirit,

A collar worse may you inherit :

To man or beast, you’ll ne’er be good,

So kiss the nose, or **** of Spudd.

FINIS.

Brit. Mus. 1890, e. 5 (160).

APPENDIX XXII

A'

PANE GYRIC
On the Reverend
Dean SWIFT.

In Answer to
A LIBEL on Dr. Delany,
and a certain Great Lord.

Never before Printed.

LONDON :

Printed for J. Roberts in War wick-Lane,
and N. Blandford at the London-
Gazette, Charing-Cross. MDCCXXX.
(Price Six-pence.)

A

PANEGYRIC
On the Reverend
Dean SWIFT.

Could all we little Folks that wait.

And dance Attendance on the Great,
Obtain such Privilege as You,

To rail, and go unpunish’d too ;

364

A PANEGYRIC

365

To treat our Betters like our Slaves,

And all Mankind as Fools, or Knaves ;
The Pleasure of so large a Grant
Would much compensate all we want.
Mitres and Glebes could scarce do more
To scratch our endless Itch of Pow’r.

For next to being great our selves,

It is to think all great ones Elves,

And when we can’t be tele a tete
Their Fellows, turn their Dread and Hate.
How amply then does Pow’r provide
For you to gratifie your Pride ?

Where’er the Wind of Favour sits,

It still your constitution hits.

If fair, it brings you safe to Port,

And when ’tis foul, affords you Sport.

A Deanery you got, when in ;

And now you’re out, enjoy your Grin.

But hark’ee, is it truly so,

(And you of all Mankind should know)
That Men of Wit can be no more
Than Pimps to Wickedness in Pow’r ?
Then pray, dear Doctor, condescend
To teach the Science to your Friend.

For long inur’d to musty Rules,

And idle Morals in the Schools,

My highest Progress in the Myst’ry
Is of short Sessions a long Hist’ry ;
Lampoons on Whigs, when in Disgrace ;
Or vile Submissions, when in Place ;
Poems address’d to great Men’s Whores ;
Or other Lap-Dog Cures for Sores.

But form’d more perfect Gamester, you
The deepest Tricks of Courtiers knew.

866

APPENDIX XXII

Your Horace not content to quote,

You at a Pinch could forge a Plot ;

The fatal Box itself display’d.

Where Whigs their cursed Trains had laid ;

Nor ceas’d the Faction to pursue,

Till you had got them in a Screw .

Oh, wondrous Box ! my Lyre unstrung
Shall be, when thou art left unsung.

More precious far than ev’n the Gift
Of our Metropolis to Swift ;

The Gift, (Good Heav’ns preserved from Thieves)
Of Lord May'r 9 Aldermen , and Shrieves,

Where, if the Curious list to read ’em,

They’ll find his Life, and Acts, and Freedom ,

And the Great Name engrav’d most fairly
Of him that Ireland sav’d, and Harley ;

With quaint Inscription , which contains,!

Laid out with no less Art, than Pains, V
His Virtues all, and half my Brains. J

No Wonder ’tis, you think it little
To lick a Rascal States-man's Spittle ,

Who, to express your great Devotion,

Have swallow’d down a stronger Potion,

A Composition more absurd, *

Bob's Spittle mix’d with Harry's

Oh, could’ st thou teach us how to Zest
Such Draughts as this, and then Digest ,

Then we might also have in Time
More beneficial Ways than Rhime ; ,

Refuse our Patron’s Call to dine,

Pish at his Cook’ry, Damn his Wine ;

Assume a Dignitary's Airs ;

And go to Church , and say our Prayers.

Rightly you shew, that Wit alone
Advances few, enriches none.

A PANEGYRIC

367

And ’tis as true, or Story lies,

Men seldom by their Good Deeds rise ;

From whence the Consequence is plain,

You never had commenc’d a Dean,

Unless you other Ways had trod
Than those of Wit, or Trust in GOD.

’Twas" therefore cruel hard, by Jove,

Your Industry no better throve.

Nor could atchieve the promis’d Lawn
Though Robin’s Honour was in Pawn ;
Because it chanc’d, an old grave Don
Believ’d in GOD, and you in none.

Be this however your Relief,

Whene’er your Pride recals your Grief,

That all the Loss your Purse sustain’d
By that Rebuff your Virtue gain’d.

For must you not have often ly’d.

And griev’d your righteous Soul beside,

Th’ Almighty’s Orders to perform.

Not to direct a Plague, or Storm,

But ’gainst the Dictates of your Mind,

To bless, as now you curse Mankind ?

You tell me, ’till my Fortune’s made,

I must take up the sweetening Trade.

I own, the Counsel were not wrong,

Did Congreve’s Wit inspire my Song,

Or could my Muse exert the Rage
Of Addison’s Immortal Page,

When rap’t in Heav’nly Airs, he sings
The Acts of GODS, and Godlike Kings.

But form’d by You, how should their Model
E’er enter any Mortal’s Noddle ?

Our Thoughts, to hit your nicer Taste,

Must in a diff’rent Mould be cast ;

368

APPENDIX XXII

The Language Billingsgate excel ;

The Sentiments resemble Hell.

Thus, should I give your Humour Place,
And draw like you my Patron’s Face ;

To do him Honour meet, in Course
I must compare him to a Horse ;

Then shew, how States-men oft are stung
By Gnats, and draw the Nation’s Dung,
The stinking Load of all the Crimes,

And Nastiness of modern Times,

Not only what themselves have

For that were not unjust a Bit,

But all the Filth by Spiss, and Sparse
Of e’ery Rogue that wears an .

To add more Dignity and Light
To an Allusion so polite,

The Devil ready stands, my Swift
To help our Fancy at a Lift ;

Yet envy not, that I repeat
The damnable the dear Conceit.

“ So when poor Irish Rapparee
“ Is sentenc’d to the fatal Tree jr
“ Or naughty Boy elopes from School ;

“ Or pretty Miss has play’d the Fool,

“ And crack’d her tender Maiden-head
“ By lying on too hard a Bed ;

“ Their Loads they all on Satan lay,

“ The Devil did the Deed, not they.

The Simile wou’d better jump.

Were you but plac’d on Satan’s Rump ;

For if bestrode by you. Old Nick
Himself could scarce forbear to kick.

A PANEGYRIC

869

And curse his wicked Burthen more
Than all the Sins he ever bore.

Is this the Art, good Doctor, say,

The true, the genuine sweetening Lay ?

Then must it truly be contest.

Our Ministers are void of Taste,

To let such Dabs as You and I
So long undignify’d lie by,

While Dunces of the coarsest Clay,

That only know to preach, and pray ,

Devour the Church's tiddest Bits ,

That only should be shar’d by Wits,

And leave us nought but Guts , and Garbage ,
Or dirty Offals cook’d with Herbage .

No less than Reasons of such Weight
Cou’d make you so sincerely hate

Both and Ministers of State .

For once there was a Time, GOD wot.

Before our Friends were gone to Pot 9
When Jonathan was great at Court ,

*The Ruin’d Party made his Sport,

Despis’d the Beast with many Heads ,

And damp’d the Mob whom now he leads.
But Things are strangely chang’d since then ;
And Kings are now no more than Men ;

From whence ’tis plain, they quite have lost
GOD’s Image , which was once their Boast.
For Humankind are all Yahoos ,

As Gulliver divinely shews.

Both Envy then, and Malice must
Grant your Aversion strictly just ;

Since you alone of all the Race
Have clear renounc’d both Name , and Face ;
And with the Virtues pant to wear
24

370

APPENDIX XXII

(May Heav’n indulgent hear your Pray’r !)

The Proof of your high Origine,

The Horse’s Countenance Divine !

While Grattan, Sheridon, and I,

Who after you adoring fly.

An humbler Prospect only wait,

To be your Asses Colts of State,

The Angels of your awful Nods,

Resembling You, as Angels GODS.

FINIS.

Brit. Mus. 11631. e. 61.

APPENDIX XXIII

THE

LIFE

AND

Genuine Character

OF

Doctor SWIFT.

Written by Himself.

London :

Printed for J. Roberts in Warwick-Lane , and
Sold at the Pamphlet Shops, &c. 1733.

{Price One Shilling.)

To the READER.

This Poetical Account of the Life and Character of
the Reverend Dea# Swift, so celebrated through the World
for his many Ingenious Writings, was occasioned by a
Maxim o/Rochefoucault : and is now published from the
Author’s last corrected Copy, being Dedicated by the
Publisher, To Alexander Pope, of Twickenham, Esq ;

TO

Alexander Pope, Esq ;

OF

Twickenham in the County of Middlesex.

As you have been long an intimate Friend of the
Author of the following Poem , I thought you would not

371

372

APPENDIX XXIII

be displeased with being informed of some Particulars,
how he came to write it, and how I, very innocently,
procured a Copy .

It seems the D — n, in conversation with some Friends ,
said, he could guess the discourse of the World concerning
his Character after his Death, and thought it might be
no improper Subject for a Poem . This happened above
a Year before he finished it ; for it was written by small
pieces, just as Leisure or Humour allowed him.

He shewed some Parts of it to several Friends , and
when it was compleated, he seldom refused the sight of
it to any Visiter : So that, probably, it has been perused
by fifty Persons ; which being against his usual Practice ,
many People judged, likely enough, that he had a desire
to make the People of Dublin impatient to see it pub-
lished, and at the same time resolved to disappoint them ;
For he never would be prevailed on to grant a Copy, and
yet several Lines were retained by Memory , and are often
repeated in Dublin .

It is thought, that one of his Servants in whom he had
great confidence , and who had access to his Closet , took
an opportunity, while his Master was riding so me mi les
out of town, to transcribe the whole Poem : and it is
probable, that the Servant lent it to others , who were not
trusty (as it is generally the case). By this accident, I,
having got a very correct Copy from a Friend in Dublin f
lye under no obligation to conceal it.

I have shewn it to very good Judges , and Friends of
the Dean , (if I may venture to say so to You, who are
such a Superior Judge and Poet), who are well acquainted
with the Author's Stile, and Manner, and they all allow
it to be Genuine, as well as perfectly finished and correct ;
his particular Genius appearing in every Line, together
with his peculiar way of thinking and writing .

I should be very sorry to offend the Dean , altho* I am
a perfect Stranger to his Person ; But since the Poem

373

LIFE AND CHARACTER

will infallibly be soon printed, either here, or in Dublin, I
take my self to have the best title to send it to the Press ;
and I shall direct the Printer to commit as few errors
as possible.

I am, Sir, with the greatest respect,

Your most Obedient and

. most Humble Servant,

L. M.

From my Chambers
in the Inner Temple,

Land. Apr. 1. 1733.

THE

LIFE and CHARACTER

OF

Dean SWIFT.

Upon a Maxim in Rochefoucault.

Wise Rochefoucault a Maxim writ,

Made up of Malice, Truth, and Wit :

If what he says be not a Joke,

We Mortals are strange kind of Folk.

But hold — : before we farther go,
’Tis fit the Maxim we should know.

He says,,“ Whenever Fortune sends
“ Disasters, to our Dearest Friends,

“ Although we outwardly may Grieve,

“ We oft are Laughing in our Sleeve.
And, when I think upon’t, this minute,
I fancy, there is something in it.

374

APPENDIX XXIII

We see a Comrade get a fall,

Yet laugh our hearts out, one and all.

Tom for a wealthy Wife looks round,

A Nymph , that brings ten thousand Pound :
He no where could have better pick’d ;

A Rival comes, and Tom — is nick’d — .

See, how behave his Friends profest,

They turn the Matter to a Jest ;

Loll out their Tongues, and thus they talk,
Poor Tom has got a plaguy baulk — !

I could give Instances Enough,

That Human Friendship is but Stuff.
Whene’er a flailring Puppy cries
You are his Dearest Friend — ; he lyes :

To lose a Guinea at Picquet

Wou’d make him rage, and storm, and fret,

Bring from his Heart sincerer Groans,

Than if he heard you broke your Bones.

Come, tell me truly, wou’d you take wellf
Suppose your Friend and You were Equal,
To see him always foremost stand,

Affect to take the upper hand,

And strive to pass, in publick view,

Por much a better Man than You l
Envy, I doubt, wou’d pow’rful prove,

And get the better of your Love ;

’Twou’d please your Palate, like a feast.

To see him mortify’ d at least — .

’Tis true, we talk of Friendship much,

But, who are they that can keep touch— ?
True Friendship in two breasts requires
The same Aversions, and Desires ;

LIFE AND CHARACTER

375

My Friend should have, when I complain,

A Fellow-feeling of my Pain.

Yet, by Experience, oft we find,

Our Friends are of a dijf’renl mind ;

And, were I tortur’d with the Gout,

They’d laugh, to see me make a rout.

Glad, that themselves cou’d walk about.

Let me suppose, two special Friends,

And, each to Poetry pretends :

Wou’d either Poet take it well,

To hear the other bore the Bell — ?

His Rival, for the Chiefest reckon’d.

Himself, pass only for the Second — ?

When you are Sick, your Friends, you say.
Will send their Howd’ye’s ev’ry day :

Alas ! that gives you small relief — !

They send for Manners — ; not for Grief — :
Nor if you dy’d, wou’d fail to go
That Ev’ning to a Puppet-Show — :

Yet, come in time to shew their Loves,

And get a Hatband, Scarf, and Gloves.

m

To make these Truths the better known,

Let me suppose the Case my own.

The day will come, when ’t shall be said,

“ D’ye hear the News — ? The Dean is dead — !
“ Poor Man! he went, all on a sudden — !
H’as drop’d, and giv’n the Crow a Pudden !
What Money was behind him found ?

“ I hear about two thousand Pound" — .

“ ’Tis own’d he was a Man of Wit — ,

Yet many a foolish thing he writ — ;

376

APPENDIX XXIII

“ And, sure he must be deeply learn’d — !
That’s more than ever I discern’d — ;

“ I know his nearest Friends complain,

“ He was too airy for a Dean — .

“ He was an honest man I’ll swear ” — :

Why Sir, I differ from you there.

For, I have heard another Story,

He was a most confounded Tory — !

“ Yet here we had a strong report,

“ That he was well-receiv’d at Court — .

Why, then it was, I do assert,

Their Goodness, more than his Desert — .

He grew, or else his Comrades ly’d.
Confounded Dull — , before he Dy’d — .

He hop’d to have, a Lucky Hit,

Some Medals sent him for his Wit ;

But, truly there the Dean was bit — .

“ And yet, I think, for all your Jokes ,

“ His Claim as good as other Folks — .

“ Must we the Drapier then forget ?

“ Is not our Nation in his debt ?

“ ’Twas he that writ the Drapier' s Letters — !
He shou’d have left them for his Betters ;

We had a Hundred abler Men,

Nor need depend upon his Pen — .

Say what you will about his reading.

You never can defend his Breeding !

Who, in his Satyrs running riot,

Cou’d never leave the World in quiet — ;
Attacking, when he took the Whim,

Court, City, Camp, all one to him — .

But, why wou’d he, except he slobber'd.
Offend our Patriot, Great Sir R ,

LIFE AND CHARACTER 377

Whose Councils aid the Sov’reign Pow’r,

To save the Nation ev’ry hour ?

What Scenes of Evil he unravels,

In Satyrs, Libels, Lying Travels !

Not sparing his own Clergy-Cloth,

But, eats into it, like a Moth — !

“ If he makes Mankind bad as Elves,

“ I answer, they may thank themselves ;

“ If Vice can ever be abash’d,

“ It must be Ridicul’d, or Lash’d.

But, if I chance to make a slip.

What right had he to hold the Whip ?

“ If you resent it, who’s to blame ?

“ He neither knew you, nor your Name ;

“ Shou’d Vice expect to ’scape rebuke,

“ Because its Owner is a Luke ?

“ Vice is a Vermin ; Sportsmen say
“No Vermin can demand fair Play,

“ But, ev’ry Hand may justly slay.

I envy not the Wits, who write
Meerly to gratify their Spight ;

Thus did the Dean : his only scope
Was, to be held a Misanthrope.

This into gen’ral Odium drew him.

Which if he lik’d, much good may do him :

This gave him Enemies in plenty.

Throughout two Realms nineteen in twenty.
His Zeal was not to lash our Crimes,

But Discontent against the Times ;

For, had We made him timely Offers,

To raise his Post, or fill his Coffers,

Perhaps he might have truckled down.

Like other Brethren of his Gown,

378

APPENDIX XXIII

For Party he would scarce have Bled — :

I say no more — , because he’s dead — .

“ But who cou’d charge him, to his face,

“ That e’er he cring'd to Men in Place ?

“ His Principles, of antient date,

“ 111 suit with those profess’d of late :

“ The Pope, or Calvin he’d oppose,

“ And thought they Both were equal Foes :

“ That Church and State had suffer’d more
“ By Calvin, than the Scarlet Whore :

“ Thought Popish and Fanatich Zeal,

“ Both bitter Foes to Britain's Weal.

“ The Pope would of our Faith bereave us,

“ But, still our Monarchy wou’d leave us — .

“ Not so, the vile Fanatich Crew ;

“ That Ruin’d Church and Monarch too.

“ Supposing these Reflections just ;

“ We shou’d indulge the Dean's disgust,

“ Who saw this Factious Tribe caress’d,

“ And Lovers of the Church distress’d — :

“ The Patrons of the good old Cause ,

“ In Senates sit, at making Laws ;

“ The most malignant of the Herd,

“ In surest way to be preferr’d — ;

“ And Preachers find the better quarter,

“ For railing at the Royal Martyr.

“ Whole Swarms of Sects, with grief, he saw
“ More favour’d, than the Church by Law :

“ Thought Protestant too good a Name
“ For canting Hypocrites to claim,

“ Whose Protestation hides a Sting
“ Destructive to the Church and King :

“ Which might as well, in his opinion,

“ Become an Atheist, or Socinian.

LIFE AND CHARACTER 379

“ A Protestant’s a special Clinker ;

“ It serves for Sceptick, and Free-thinker,

“ It serves for Stubble, Hay , and Wood,

“ For ev’ry thing — , but what it should.

What Writings has he left behind — ?

“ *1 hear, they’re of a different kind :

“ A few, in Verse-; but most, in Prose ” — .
Some high-flown Pamphlets, I suppose — :

All scribbled in the worst of times,

To palliate his Friend Oxford’s Crimes,

To praise Queen Anne, nay more, defend her.
As never fav’ring the Pretender — :

Or Libels yet conceal’d from sight — •,

Against the Court to shew his Spight — .
Perhaps, his Travels, Part the Third ;

A Lye, at ev’ry second word :

Offensive to a Loyal Ear — :

But — not one Sermon, you may swear — .

“ Sir, our Accounts are diff’rent quite,

“ And your Conjectures are not right ;

“ ’Tis plain, his Writings were design’d
“ To please, and to reform Mankind ;

“ And, if he often miss’d his Aim,

“ The World must own it, to their Shame ;

“ The Praise is His, and Theirs the Blame.

“ Then, since you dread no further Lashes,

“ You freely may forgive his Ashes.

FINIS.

Brit. Mus. 840. m. 1 (16).

APPENDIX XXIY

The Alderman’s Guide ; or, A new Pattern for a Lord-
Mayor. A Ballad.

To the Tune of Ye Commons and Peers, &c.

Written by a Craftsman of the City of Dublin.

I

Kind Heav’n has granted
At last what we wanted,

A worthy Lord-Mayor for our Town !

A Man of more Merit,

True honour and spirit,

Ne’er yet wore an alderman’s gown.

II

Of Humphrey 1 we’re told, ~

The good Duke of old,

For virtue renown’d, and high blood :
Now, tho’ not his Grace,

Nor royal in race,

Yet ours is an Humphrey as good !

III

Our pray’rs, heard on high.

Have brought from the sky

1 Duke of Gloucester, Brother of King Henry the Vth.

THE ALDERMAN’S GUIDE

381

Fair Justice to visit the land :

On cushion and bench,

She substitutes French,

Committing her scales to his hand.

IV

The sun from his course,

Or streams to their source,

You sooner eou’d turn — I assure ye, —

Than make him unjust,

Or false to his trust.

Pray mark me, — O Walpole and Fleury 1 —

Y

Let no man dare think
From danger he’d shrink.

When rogues are insulting our laws :

With resolute heart, .

Our rights to assert.

He’d lay down his life for the cause.

VI

The gentry in red
Revere him with dread.

As savages worship the devil :

They feel by their wounds,

He fears no dragoons, —

And so they’ll hereafter be civil.

VII

Resolv’d to behave.

Like Walworth, 1 the brave,

1 The famous Lord-Mayor of London in Kin g Richard the
lid’s reign.

382

APPENDIX XXIV

Who stabb’d ’midst his rabble Wat Tyler ;
He put to the rout
Those myrmidons stout,

With a courage that fears no reviler.

VIII

For the public good
He’ll risk his heart’s blood !-
When perils his person environ ;
He answers each bully,

Who thought him a cully,

He knows how to deal in cold Iron.

IX

Tho’ titles he scorns,

Where virtue adorns,

Yet, now, to support his high place, —
By Jove ! — he’ll not flinch,

Nor give up an inch,

But take the right hand of his Grace ! 1

X

The coaches of state,

And farce of the great,

Next year, he’ll resign without pain ;

And, like the fam’d Roman , 2
Till now, match’d by no man.

Return to his ploughshares again.

1 He contended for right of precedency with the Archbishop of
Dublin, and obtained it.

! Q. Cincinnatus the Dictator.

THE ALDERMAN’S GUIDE

383

XI

Oppression no more
Shall threaten the poor ;

Nor villains escape by their treasure :

While honesty thrives,

And commerce revives,

Maintain’d by just weight, and true measure.

XII

Ye traitors, who cheat
In the bread, we must eat.

And pray daily for to our Maker ;

We bid you beware
Our vigilant May’r,

And the fortune of Pharaoh’s chief baker.

XIII

Such worth wou’d become
A censor of Rome ;

And envy, however malicious,
Must own he exceeds,

In generous deeds,

Stern Cato, and rigid Fabricius.

XIV

Then, boys, fill a glass,

And round let it pass !

The mark of cursed Cain let him wear ;
Who, void of all art,

Won’t drink, from his heart.

The health of our worthy Lord Mayor !

384

APPENDIX XXIV

XV

Come — boys — t’other cup !

Again — fill it up !

To the Welfare and Trade of the City ! —

Now, if any foes.

Who this dare oppose,

’Scape hanging — it ‘sure were a pity ! —

XVI

Once more drink about !

We’ll see it all out ! —

Still, still, may we have — to direct us, —

A magistrate brave.

No dastard, or slave ;

But one, who, like French, shall protect us.

XVII

To the patriot’s praise
A statue let’s raise !

Be an arch triumphal decreed him !

Whose glory shall fire,

And nobly inspire

The souls of all those, who succeed him !

Brit. Mus. 839. m. 23 (111).

APPENDIX XXV

A Lullaby

For the D — n of St. P — ks :

OR,

The D — r fed with his own Spoon.

To the Tune of the Nurse's Ballad.

Risum teneatis amici. Hor. de Art. Poet.

O my sweet J — n — n, J — n — n,

O my sweet J — n — n S—ftee,

Goody good D — n be so kind,

-T’aecept of a New-Years-Giftee :

Sure thy Lilliput, Lilliput,

Sure-thy Tale of a Tubbee,

Shews us that you have been Sucking
Each MUSES lilly-white Bubbee.

Chucky chuckow my prety Face,

Fair as Alabaster,

Kneel on both Knees to his G — ee.

And he’ll make a B-sh-p of Master :

A B-sh-p, indeed, you shall be,

If you’ll quit your Pen, Ink, and Paper
But, if you Rail at Great Folks
You still shall continue the Dr-p-r.

385

25

APPENDIX XXV

nm

We was the D — n of St, P-t — k’s,

And we was a Woman ee Hater ;

If ever we get us a Wife,

Efekins, wee’ll sorely beat Her :

We’ll beat her from Morn ’till Night,

If she do’s n’t do what we bid her ;

And when the poor Soul dies for Grief,
The dear D — n must die a Wid’er.

Were was a Laugh and a Jest ?

And, were was a Punn and a Quibble ?

Were was a Song and a Poem ?

And, were was a Ballad and Scribble ?

When People grow old they grow peevish ,
And that is thy Case, dear D — nee ;

You shall have a Nurse and a Cradle,

As well as the Child of ZM — ny*

A LULLABY

387

An Huze :

OR,

The D — n’s ANSWER

TO THE

LULLABY.

-Risus Risum.

O my little F y, sweet F y,

O my Nowix F y Du — y ;

Scribble a Song for his G — ce,

And he surely will make’e a D :

For sure thy Punns and thy Fables,
Your exquisite taste o’ the Fashion,
Shews us that you are designed
One of the K of this Nation.

Chear up your Heart, mine Honey,

And your Cheeks as red as a Rosey ;

Sit with nown Wife, and Write
Some sweet Ballad or Pomey :

Your Pomeys, indeed, will make’e.
If ’ou them closely follow,

A B — p or D — n at least,

Or, perhaps, another Apollo.

Were was a Sneer and a Smile ?

And, were was a fawning Expression ?
Were was a sanctify’d Leer ?

388

APPENDIX XXV

And, were was a design’d Carressing ?

When People are Married, the’re foolish.
And that’s thy Case, dear Du — y ;

Should P y chance to prove W — sh

You’d be worse off than J — n — n D y.

BROBDIGNAGG

Printed, by Lamuel Hnhmyontrams, Printer to his
Majesty of Laputa.

Cambridge University Lib. Hib. 3. 730. 1 (82).
The Trader’s Garland, Brit. Mus. 11621. c. 4 (77).

APPENDIX XXVI

UNDATED PIECES ATTRIBUTED TO SWIFT
Octosyllabic

Catullus de Lesbia.

Epigram on the English Tongue.

An Answer to On Stealing a Crown.

The Dean’s Manner of Living.

Motto for Jason Hasard, a Woollen-draper.

Faulkner, 1746.

Epigram on Fasting.

Miscellanies, 1735.

The Parson’s Case.

Imitation of the Rose by Mr. Philips.

An Answer to a Friend’s Question.

* ‘Nichols, 1776 (cf. Literary Illustrations, v. 383).

On Two Celebrated Modem Poets.

Hawkesworth, 1775.

The Upstart.

On Blenheim.

On a Window at Kihnore.

On the Arms of Waterford.

Sir Walter Scott.

Other Metres

Street Cries — For Fruitwomen, etc.

To Mrs. Houghton of Bormount.

Faulkner, 1746, 1762.

389

390

APPENDIX XXVI

The Dog and Shadow.

A Portrait from the Life.

On a Curate’s Complaint of Hard Duty.

Hawkesworth, 1765, 1775.

A Dialogue between Sir William Handcock and Thady
Fitz Patrick.

Barrett, 1808.

(This piece appears to have been begun in 1701 but
cannot have been completed before 1716-17.)

Celer ad Fervendum.

Wilde, op. eit., p. 182.

In Life of James Bonnell.

Notes and Queries, 2nd Ser., v. 207.

A New Ballad on a Mock Duel between a Lawyer and
a Certain Physician.

Brit. Mus. 839, m. 23 (82).

INDEX

Acheson, Lady, 233, 257, 281
Aeheson, Sir Arthur, 175, 233 ;

residence, 233, 239, 245
Actaeon or the Original of Horn
Fair, 99

Acton, Richard, Vice -Provost of
Trinity College, Dublin, 8, 14
Ad amicum eruditum Thomam
Sheridan , 150

Addison, Joseph, 3, 54, 63, 65,
95, 100, 103, 211, 247
Admirable Becipe , An, 92
Advice to a Painter, 19
Advice to a Parson, 295
Advice to the Grub-street Verse
Writers, 215
Aislaby, John, 144
Alderman's Guide, The, 280, 380
Allen, Lord, 251, 293
Anne, Queen, 145 ; Poem on
Birthday of Her late Majesty,
333

Ansu&r to a Friend's Question, 389
Answer to a New Simile for the
Ladies, 280, 296

Answer to Doctor p — l — y's Fable
of the Pheasant and the Lark,
251, 259

Answer to On Stealing a Crown,
An, 389

Answer to Some Lines on a Very
Old Glass at Market Hill, 258
Answer to the Christmas Box for
Narnby Pamby, 259
Answer to the Bebus, 170, 177
ApoUo, or a Problem solved, 296
Apollo Outwitted, 95, 105
Apollo's Edict to the Poets, 99,
175

Apology to Lady Carteret in
Ireland, An, 253, 259
Applebee's Original Weekly Jour-
nal, 260

Arbuckle, James, 32, 181, 203

Arbuthnot, Dr., 125, 145, 149, 208
Arms of Waterford, On the, 389
Art of Cookery, The, 98, 101
Art of Punning, The, 154, 321
Art of Sinking in Poetry , The, 294
Ashe, Dillon, 11, 15
Ashe, St. George, 11, 14
Ashton, Robert, 179, 333
Athenian Gazette, The, 37
Athenian Oracle, The, 38
Athenian Society, Ode to the, 24,
37

Atlas, or the Minister of State, 130
Auricula , The, 332
Author upon Himself, The, 143,
144

Ay and No, 293, 298

Ballad, An Irish, 116, 305
Ballad by way of Dialogue between
a Kite and a Crow on the
Quadrille, A New, 292
Ballad, The, or some scurrilous
reflections in verse on the Pro -
ceedingsofthe Houseof Commons,
50

Ballad for Borne, 12
Ballad on the Game of Traffic, 52,
60

Ballad, on unveiling the statue to
George I, 166

Ballad, The Catholic, 12, 13
Ballad, The Donore, 332
Ballad to the Tune of Chevy Chase,
18

Ballad to the Tune of the Cutpurse,
52, 61, 105, 156

Ballad. See also Blueskin, Ex-
cellent, and Molly Mog.
Ballyspelhn, Swift at, 241, 257
Bank Thrown Down , The, 164, 323
Barber, John, 268
Barber, Jonathan, 259
Barber, Mrs. Mary, 259, 270

392

INDEX

Barrett, John, Vice-Provost of
Trinity College, Dublin, 4, 6, 7,
8 ; Essay on the Life of Swift,
14 ; attributes pieces to Swift,
59, 60, 61, 99, 123, 174
Bartholomew Fair , 53
Bathurst, Lord, 253
Baucis and Philemon , 57, 60, 66,
67, 68-82, 92, 105, 106
Beast's Confession , The, 262, 278,
296

Beau's Reply, The , 236. aZso
Little Beau.

Beautiful Young Nymph going to
Bed, A, 276
Bedford, Duke of, 175
Berington's Evening Post , 296
Berkeley, Countess of, 52
Berkeley, 2nd Earl of, Swift’s
Patron, 43, 44 ; leaves Ireland,
46, 52 ; connection with Prior
and Swift, 104

Berkeley, George, Bishop of
Cloyne, 168

Berkeley, Lady Betty, 43, 47, 95
Berkeley, Lady Mary, 43
Bettesworth, Sergeant, 287 ; Epi-
gram on, 288, 291
Betty the Orisette, To, 256, 260
Bickerstaffe, Isaac, Predictions
of, 96, 105

Biograplna Britannica, 124
Birth of Manly Virtue, The , 194 ;

To the Author of, 206
Blackmore, Richard, 39
Blackwell, James, 250
Blair, Rev. James, 51
Blandford, N., bookseller, 139, 253
Blessings and Plagues of a Country
Life, The, 163, 198, 214, 265,
267 '

Blessington, Recorder of, 55
Blueshin's Ballad, 190, 214, 334
Boat©, Godfrey, Justice of the
King’s Bench, Dublin, 164, 176
Bolingbroke, Viscount, 54, 142
Bolton, Theophilus, Archbishop
of Cashel, 288
Bonnell, James, Life,* 390
Boulter, Hugh, Archbishop of
Armagh, 180, 202, 291, 293
Bounce to Fop, 230
Bouts Rimes, 219, 229 ; on

Baliyspellin, 241
Bowyer, William, 266

Boyer, Abel, 124, 183
Bracegirdle, Mrs., 18, 20
Brady, Joseph, 5, 14
British J ournal. The , 260
Broken Mug, The, 214
Bromage, bookseller, 176
Brother Protestants and Fellow
Christians , On the Words, 288
Brothers’ Club, The, 117
Bubble, The, 160
Burlesque. See Killala .
burning a Dull Poem, On, 256, 260
Bushe, Arthur, 45
Butler, Brinsley, “ Prince,” after-
wards Viscount Lanesborough,
11, 51

Butler, Mrs., 18, 20
Butler, Theophilus, afterwards
Lord Newtown-Butler, 6, 11

Cadenus and Vanessa, 134-139,
170 ; publication of, 208 ; in
a special class, 262
Cadogan, Ode to the Earl of, 204
Captain Gulliver's Real Diary , 5
CarbencB Rupes , 169
Caroline, Queen, 217
Carson, James, 297
Carteret, John, 2nd Lord, after-
wards Earl Granville, 185, 194;
Vindication, 207 ; Delany and,
232 ; Epistle, 247, 297
Carteret, Lady, 62; Apology to, 253
Carteret , Poem to Miss , 202
Carthy, Charles, 289, 297
Cashel and Bettesworth , On the
Archbishop of, 288, 289
Cassinus and Peter , 276
CastleJcnock , On the Little House
by the Churchyard of, 107
Catholic Ballad, The, 12, 13
Catullus de Lesbia, 389
Celer ad Fervendum, 390
Censure, On, 22 3
Chambers, Thomas, 43
Chandos, Duke of, 290
Character of a Coxcomb, The , 46
Character of Sir Robert Walpole ,
A 217

Chesterfield, Earl of, 179, 277
Chetwode, Knightley, 164
Christie, Joseph, 12, 18, 46, 112
Christmas Box for Namby Pamby,
A, 202 ; Answer to, 259
Church, A Poem on High, 122

INDEX

398

Church in Glory , The, 145
Church's Danger, The, 122
Citizens, To the (Dublin), 192
City Shower . See Description.
Clad all in Brown , 238
Clever Tom Clinch going to be
Hanged, 218
Clyde, On the, 181
Cogan, Francis, 100, 176, 205,
206, 257 *

Coghdl, Marmaduke, 259
Coke, Sir Edward, 219
Collins, John Churton, 2, 238,
245, 256 ; comments on The
Legion Club , 292
Colt, Sir Henry Dutton, 110
Concanen, Matthew, 175, 230, 256
Conference between Sir H. P — ce's
Chariot and Mrs . D. St — d's
Chair, 53

Congratulatory Poem on Dean
Swift's Return to Town, 332
Congratulatory Poem to Dean
Swift, by Robt. Ashton, 333
Congreve, William, poem to, 32 ;

ballad by, 98, 115, 122, 247
Comngsby, Thomas, afterwards
Earl, 18

Contests and Dissensions in Athens
and Rome, 48, 60
Cooper, F., bookseller, 296
Cope, Robert, of Loughgall, 171
Corinna, 214
Council, The, 13
* Counter Scuffle, The, 14
Country Life, The. See Blessings
and Plagues.

Courthope, William J., 2, 47, 60,
131, 136

Cowley, Abraham, 16
Cowper, Mary Countess, her Diary ,
98

Craik, Sir Henry, 2, 13, 14, 32,
59, 67, 100, 110

Crowe, William, Recorder of
Blessington, 55, 61
Curate's Complaint of Hard Duty,
On A, 390

Gurll, Edmund, 60, 107, 146, 174,
211, 214

Curry-comb of Truth for a certain
Dean, 292

Cutting down the Old Thorn, On,
239, 265, 276, 295
Cutts, Lord, 55

Daily C our ant. The, 61
Daily Journal, The, 269, 295, 296,
297

Daily Post, The, 175, 259
Daniel, Richard, Dean of Armagh,
241

Davenant, Charles, 49, 51
Davies, Sir John, 39
Davis, Charles, bookseller, 273
Davys, Mrs., 123
Day of Judgement , The, 262, 277
Deafness, Latin lines oft Swift’s,
290

Dean and the Duke, The, 290
Dean to Himself on St. Cecilia's
Day, The, 255

Dean’s Manner of Living, The ,
389

Dean's Reasons for not building at
Drapier's Hill, The, 254
Death and Daphne , 255, 260
Death of Doctor Swift, Verses on
the, 261, 268, 273-275
Delany, Rev. Patrick, 100, 148,
152 ; trial of wit between
Swift and, 157 ; at Gaulstown,
163, 173 ; the Drapier and,
179 ; style imitated, 195 ; on
Swift’s Riddles, 206 ; 214, 220,
229 ; piece on his villa, 230 ;
with deputation to George II,
232 ; friendships, 233 ; vanity,
247 ; target for squibs, 250 ;
pieces addressed to, 259 ; in-
fluence on Swift ceases, 261 ;
on offensive pieces, 275 ; lines
on his daughter’s birth, 290 ;
Observations upon Lord Orrery's
Remarks, 100, 206, 251
Demar, moneylender, 154, 156,
174, 214

Description of a City Shower , 104,
105, 108, 111

Description of Dunkirk, 130
Description of an Irish Feast , 154,
155, 267

Description of a Morning, 96,
105

Description of a Salamander, 105
Desire and Possession, 224
Devil to do about Dunkirk , The , 100
Dialogue between an Eminent
Lawyer and Swift, 249
Dialogue between Mad Mullinix
and Timothy , 236, 264

394

INDEX

Dialogue between Sir William
Handcock and Thady Fitz-
patrick, 390

Dialogue between the Cities of
London and Paris, 50
Dick a Maggot, 238
Dick's Variety , 238
Dilly, Charles, booksellor, 173
Dingley, Rebecca, at Quilca, 196,
198 ; lines of birthday, 225
Directions for making a Birthday
Song, 246

Discourse of the Profound , 213
Discovery , The , 44, 60
Dismal. See Nottingham,

Doctor D — l — y on Libels writ
against him. To, 250, 264, 267
Dr. Delany's Villa , 230
Dodd, A., bookseller, 131, 133, 140
Dog and the Shadow, The , 390
Dog and the Thief, The, 219
Donegal, The Dowager Lady, 159
Donore Ballad, The, 332
Double Dealer, Congreve’s, 33
Drake, Nathan, 2, 14, 136
Drapier Anatomized , The, 332
Drapier' s Ballad, The, 332
Drapier’s Head, The, 332
Drapier’s Hill, 245 ; The Dean's
Reasons for not building at, 254
Drapier' $ Letters, The, 178-189
Drapier's Miscellany, The , 206
Dreams , On, 199, 214
Drelmcour, James, 290
Drogheda, Earl of, 46
Dryden, John, 1, 2, 13, 16, 32
Dublin, Excellent New Song Upon
His Grace Our Good Lord
Archbishop of, 185
Dublin Journal, The, 38
Dublin Jubilee, The, 337
Dublin, Lines to His Grace the
Archbishop of, 184
Dublin, Poem occasioned by the
Hangings in the Castle of, 48
Dublin, Riding the Eranchises of,
Poems on, 337
Dublin Scuffle, The, 15
Dublin, To the Citizens of, 192
Duck, Stephen, Quibbling Epigram
on, 255

Duel between Two Doctors, 14
Duel betwixt two old Physicians ,
56

Duke upon Duke , 174

Duke's Answer, The, 200
Dun, Sir Patrick, 65
Dunkin, William, and the Drapier,
179, 234; Ballad by, 259 ;
clash with Carthy, 289
Dunkin Chastised, 290
Dunkirk. See Description , Devil
to do, Peace and Dunkirk, and
Trip to Dunkirk .

Dunton, John, 14
D "Ur fey, Thomas, 19

c

Edwards, D., printer, 50
Elegy. See Quibbling, Satirical.
Elegy on the Death of Demar, 154,
156, 174, 214

Elegy on Dickie and Dolly, 238,
239

Elegy on Lamented Death of John
Lock of Athgoe, 332
Elegy on Lord Chief Baron Henn's
Connaught Pig, 14, 55
Elegy on Partridge, 94, 105
Elegy upon Tiger, 360
Elephant , The, or the Parliament
Man, 219
Enigmas, 62

Epigram on the English Tongue ,
389

Epigram on Fasting, 388
Epigram on the Late York-street
Duel, 56

Epigram on the Neglect of the
Duke of Chandos, 290
Epigram On One of the Windows'
at Delville, 230

Epigram On Seeing a Worthy
Prelate, etc., 280
Epigram. See Quibbling .
Epigrams On the Busts at Rich-
mond, 280

Epigram on Tom, 145
Epigram on Windows of English
Inns, 220, 356

Epilogue for the Play for the Benefit
of the Weavers, 214
Epilogue to Mr. Hoppy's Benefit
Night, 168

Epistle to His Excellency , John,
Lord Carteret, 247
Epistle to Mr. Gay, 262, 277
Epistle upon an Epistle, 247, 258
Epitaph on the Tomb of the Earl
of Suffolk's Fool, 258
Eugene, Prince, 125, 145

INDEX

395

livening Post , The, 174
Examiner , The , 112, 113, 139,
140, 145

Excellent New Ballad, or the True
En — sh j D — n to be hanged, 255
Excellent New Ballad, or the
Whigs’ "Lamentation , 116
Excellent New Poem on the Bishops
by an honest Whig curate and
Judas, 278*

Excellent New Song upon the
Declaration of the Several Cor-
porations of the City of Dublin,
192

Excellent New Song upon His
Grace Our Good Lord Arch-
bishop of Dublin , 185
Excellent New Song upon the Late
Grand Jury , 187

Excellent Old Ballad, made at the
Restoration of Charles II, 145
Explanation of the Tale of a
Nettle, 123

Fable of the Bitches, 150
Fable of the Housewife and her
Coch, 125

Fable of the Lion and Other
Beasts, 256
Fable of Midas, 197
Fable of the Shepherd and his
Dog, 125

Fable of the Widow and her Cat,
124, # 315

Fable* yet a True Story, A, 48
Faggot, The, 141
Fairbrother, S., printer, 146
Fairy Feast, A, 57 *

Falkiner, Litton, vii
Farewell to the World, 353
Faulkner, George, bookseller, 61,
100, 122, 145, 172, 174, 177,
204, 206, 229, 230, 234, 256,
259, 260, 268, 270, 271, 287,
291, 294, 296, 297
Fenton, Elijah, 13
Finch, Anne, Countess of Win-
chelsea, 95

Finch, Daniel. See Nottingham.
First of April, The, 171, 326
Five Ladies’ Answer to the Beau,
The, 236

Five Ladies at Sofs Hole, On the,
235

Fixed on a Church Door, 204

Fixed on St . James’s Gate, 298
Floyd, Mrs. Biddy, 52; lines to,
95, 96, 105, 106, 159 ; Reverse
to the Verses on, 99
Flying Post, The, 50, 60
Fog’s Weekly Journal, 259, 296
Ford, Charles, 144, 170
Forster Collection, Victoria and
Albert Museum, 99, 173, 176,
246, 260

Forster, John, Life of fiwift, 8,
14, 32, 41, 59, 67, 99, 100, 107,
216

Fountaine, Sir Andrew, 60, 64,
65, 66, 100

Freeholder’s Journal, The, 176
French, Humphrey, 280
Friendly Apology for a certain
Justice of the Peace, 250
Friendly Apotheosis of the Tri-
bunes, 207

“ From India’s Burning Clime
I’m brought,” 62
Frowde, Philip, 65, 66
Furmture of a Woman’s Mind,
224

Galway, Earl of, 46
Garden Plot , The, 99
Gay, John, 141, 158, 208, 209,
213, 215, 247; Ballad attri-
buted to, 190 ; Molly Mog,
209 ; Epistle to, 262, 277
Gentlemen at Large’s Litany , The,
18, 19

George I, 164 ; Ballad, on unveil-
ing the statue to, 166 ; visit
to Hanover, 174

George II, 151 ; Poem to, 235 ;

Ode on Birthday of, 246
Germaine, Sir John, 95
Gilliver, Lawton, bookseller, 265,
270, 294

Glorious Warrior, The, 110
Goddess Envy to Dr, D — l — y, The,
259

Goldsmith, Oliver, 1, 2, 14, 136 ;
imitation of, 228 ; criticism of.
On Poetry, 284

Gorges, Lieut. -Gen. Hichard, 53 ;
238, 256

Gosford, 5th Lord, 233
Gosse, Sir Edmund, 95, 273
Grafton, Charles, 2nd Duke of,
200; Answer, 200, 214

INDEX

397

Journal to Stella , 61, 103, 104,
108, 115, 122, 130, 172, 204,
206, 232

Journeyman Shoemakers , Poem
in Honour of the Loyal Society
of t 333 ; % Satyr on, 333
Jove’s Bumble, 172, 328

Kendal, Duchess of, 186
JLevan Bail's' Ballad , The , 288,
290

Killala’s Ode to the Bari of
Cadogan , Burlesque on the Lean
of, 204

King, Archbishop, Ode to, 154 ;
Broadside in praise of, 184, 185,
193, 210, 221. See Dublin and
Excellent .

King, William, gazetteer, 57, 98, 99
King, William, of St. Mary Hall,
274

Knapton, J. and P„ booksellers,
146

Lady A — S — N Weary of the
Dean, 257

Lady who desired the Author to
write some verses in the Heroic
Style , To a, 261, 269, 281
Lady’s Answer to Mr, Ambrose
Philips’s Poem, A , 202
Lady’s Dressing Room , The , 155,
262, 264, 267, 276, 295, 296
Laraeor, 45

Last Speech of Wisdom’s Defeat,
The, 205

Lawrence, Mr. W. J., 37
Lecky, William, 2 "172, 277
Legion, 50

Legion Club , The , 292, 298
Leslie, Charles, 246 ; lines on his
two sons, 246
Leslie, Henry, 246, 254
Leslie, Robert, 246
Letter from D. S — t to D. S — y,
201, 343

Letter from the Quidnuncs at St,
James’s Coffee-House, 199
Letter of Advice to the Rev . Dr,
D — la — y, 259

Letters and Essays on Several
Subjects, 38

Letters, Poems and Tales , 59
Levinge, Sir Richard, 45
Lewis, Erasmus, 131

Libel on Dr. Delany and a Certain-
Great Lord , 247, 264, 267
Libel on the Dunces , A, 290
Life and Genuine Character of
Dr. Swift, 269, 295, 371
Lindsay, Thomas, Archbishop of
Armagh, 221

Little Beau, 234, 235, 236. See
also Beau.

Little Beau’s Speech to the Lord-
Lieutenant Paraphrased, 234
Lloyd, Edward, bookseller, 120
Lock, John, of Athgoe, 332
Logicians Refuted, The, 228
London Mercury, The, 175
London Tale, The, 123
Long, Mrs. Anne, 60
Long History of a Short Session of
a Certain Parliament in a
Certain Kingdom, 148
Love, To, 170

Love of Fame, The , by Young,
218

Love for Money, by D’Urfey, 19
Love Poem from a Physician to
his Mistress , 220

Love Song in the Modern Taste,
287

Lovel, Mr. Baron, 121
Loyal Address of the Clergy of
Virginia, 52, 299

Lullaby, A, 385 ; The Dean’s
Answer to, 387
Lyon, Dr. John, 173

Macaulay, Lord, 40
Maculla, James, 258
Manley, Mrs., 145
Marlborough, Duchess of, 113
Marlborough, Duke of, 124
Marsh, Narcissus, 4
Masham, Mrs., 119
May Fair, 98

Meath, Countess of, 238, 256
Meath, Earl of, 53
Meditation upon a Broomstick , A >
60, 100, 106, 122
Merlin’s Prophecy, 98
Metamorphosis, The, 214
Mezentius on the Rack, 290
Midleton, Viscount, 221
Milton, John, 2
Miracle, The, 13

Miscellanea. In Two Volumes
(1727, Curll), 146, 214

-898

INDEX

Miscellanies in Prose and Verse
(1711), 105

Miscellanies by Dr. J onaihan
Swift (1711, Curll), 107
Miscellanies (Two Vols., 1727), 211
Miscellanies. The Last Volume
(1728), 213

Miscellanies. The Third Volume
(1732), 265, 294

Miscellames. Volume the Fifth
(1735), 272

Mist's Weekly Journal, 207, 210
Molly Mog , 209
Moore, A., bookseller, 259
Morning, A Description of a, 96,
105

Morphew, John, bookseller, x,
101, 105, 109, 125, 127, 133,
140

Motte, Benjamin, bookseller, 146,
211, 265, 269, 270, 294
Motto for Jason Hasard, 389
Mrs. Harris's Petition, 46, 92,
105, 106, 245

Mully of Mountown, 57, 58
Musa Clonshoghiana, 173
Muses Mercury , The, 62
My Lady's Lamentation and
Complaint, 240

Nelson, Henry, 337
New Atlantis, The, 145
New Ballad on a Mock Duel
between a Lawyer and a certain
Physician, 390
New Idol, The, 62
N ew Kilmainham Ballad, The, 115
New Simile for the Ladies , Answer
to A, 280, 296

New Song on Wood's Halfpence,
182

New Year's Gift to the Dean of
St. Patrick, A, 206
Newcastle, Duke of, 133
Newgate's Garland, 190
News from Parnassus, 175
Nichols, John, x, 37, 122, 139, 145,
175, 204, 205, 259, 294, 297,
298

Nicolson, Bishop, Letters , 176
Noisy Tom, On, 291
Nosce te ipsum, 39
Nothing , Upon, 12, 13
Nottingham, Daniel Finch, 2nd
Earl of, 117, 118, 127, 144

Nutley, Bichard, 58
Nutt, John, 60, 61

Observations , See Delany.
Occasioned by Sir William
Temple's late Illness , m 35-37, 39
Ode on Birthday of George II, 246
Ode on Science, 287
Ode to Archbishop King, 154
Ode to Athenian Society, 24
’Ode to Dr. William Sancroft, 22,
27-31

Ode to the Earl of Cadogan, 204
Ode to Ireland, 220, 267
Ode to King William on Ms
Successes in Ireland, 16
Ode to Sir William Temple, 22-24
Ode to Spring, 170
. Ode to Wisdom, 170
Ode upon Solitude, 92
On I Know not What, 280
One Epistle to a Mr. Pope, 229
O’Neill, Charles, 45
Orleans, Duke of, 206
Ormonde, Duchess of, 141
Ormonde, Duke of, 51, 120
Ormonde Manuscripts, 14, 61
Orpheus and Eurydice, 57
Orpheus Burlesqued, The Story
of, 99

Orrery, John Boyle, 5th Earl of,
150, 199, 268, 271, 275
Owens, Samuel, 179, 332
Oxford, Edward Harley? 2ntL
Earl of, lines on his marriage,
133

Oxford, Bobett Harley, Earl of,
50, 102, 115, 131, 141 ; lines
to his physicians, 114; cele-
brated in ballad, 130 ; imita-
tion of Horace addressed to, 149

PacketJ)oat Returned, The, 13
Paddy's Character of the Intelli-
gencer, On, 244
Panegyric on the Dean, A, 254
Panegyric on the Bev. Dean Swift,
A, 252, 364

Paper found m the King's Boom,
A, 13

Paper put in the King's Shoe, A, 13
Parnell, Thomas, 141, 146
Parody on a Character of Dean
Smedley, 243

INDEX

399

Parody on the Recorder of Blessing -
ton's Address to Queen Anne , 55
Parson 7 s Case , The , 389
Partridge, almanack-maker, 94,
105

Pastoral Dialogue , A, 217, 240,
265

Peace and Dunkirk, 129
Peele, J., bookseller, 139
^Pembroke, Thomas, 8th Earl of,
64

Percival, William, Archdeacon of'
Cashel, afterwards Dean of
Emly, 58, 176

Peruke , Gown and Band , Satire
on a , 292

Peterborough, Earl of, 216
Pheasant and the Lark , The , 251 ;

Answer to, 251, 259
Philips, Ambrose, 54, 64, 180, 202 .
Philpot, bookseller, 125
Phipps, Robert (?), 179
Phyllis , or the Progress of Love ,
150, 214

Picture of a Beau , 46
Piers, Sir Henry, 53
Piikington, Letitia, 234, 255, 262 ;

Memoirs of, 263, 268, 294
Piikington, Rev. Matthew, 234,
246, 262, 263, 266, 268, 270
Place of the Damned, The, 262,
264, 277

Poem, See Excellent .

Poem on Church, A, 122
Poe£, 3%e, 34

Poetry, On, A Rhapsody, 261, 270,
281, 284

Pope, Alexander, x,»2, 3, 141, 144,
158, 199, 208, 215, 216, 229,
254 ; collaboration with Swift,
210-214, 264-268 ; applauded
in A Libel, 248

Popery, Collection of the Newest
and Most Ingenious Poems,
Songs, Catches, etc., against, 15
Porter, Sir Charles, 19
Portland Manuscripts, 60
Portrait from the Life , A, 390
Post Boy, The , 50, 122, 125, 140,
257, 259

Powell, Stephen, printer, 260
Power of Time, The, 256, 260
Pratt, Benjamin, Provost of
Trinity, Dean of Down, viii,
165

Prince Arthur, 39
Prince of Orange , The : A Packet
of Advice, 13

Printer being sent to Newgate , On
a, 291

Prior, Matthew, 3, 18, 99, 102*
104, 145, 158, 160
Problem, The, 45, 60
Profound, A Discourse of the, 213
Profound, Supplement to the , 229
Progress of Beauty, The, 154, 155,
214

Progress of Marriage , The, 165
Progress of Poetry, The, 154, 155,
214

Prometheus, A Poem, 186, 190, 214
Proposal for the Universal Use of
Irish Manufactures, 156, 174
Psyche, On, 278

Public Spirit of the Whigs, The , 51
Pulteney's being put out of the
Council, On Mr., 278
Punch turned Schoolmaster, 162
Punch's Petition to the Ladies, 181
Puppet Show, The, 162

Queen's and the Duke of Ormond's
New Toast, The, 126
Queen's and My Lord of Oxford's
New Toast, The, 126
Queensberry, Duke of, 277
Quibbling Elegy on the Worshipful
Judge Boat , 164

Quibbling Epigram on Stephen
Duck, 255

Quidnuncs, The, 199, 206
Quiet Life and A Good Name, A,
199

Quilca, To, 198

Ralph, James, 214
Ramble , The, 31
Rebus, Answer to the, 170, 177
Receipt to Restore Stella's Youth,
197

Recorder's Speech to the Duke of
Ormonde, 121

Recorder's Speech to Lard Wharton,
121

Reverse to the Verses on Mrs*
Biddy Floyd, 99
Review, The, 298

Revolution at Market Hill, The »
254

Riddle , A, 61

400

INDEX

Biddles, 199, 214

Boberts, James, printer and book-
seller, 139, 160, 174, 229, 244,
9«q o«q 97 ft

Bochfort, George, 152, 163, 204
Bochfort, John, 14, 163, 168
Bochfort, Bobert, Chief Baron of
Exchequer, 152, 163
Borne" s Pardons , On, 12
Boom for a Ballad , 12, 13
Boscommon, Earl of, 92
Bosse, discount, 45
Bover, A Lady's Spaniel, A
Poem upon , 202, 206
Bun upon the Bankers , The, 154,
162

Bundle, Thomas, Bishop of
Berry, 291

Biding the Franchises of Dublin,
Poems on, 337

St. James's Post , The, 162
St. Patrick's, A New Year's Gift
to the Dean of, 206
St. Patrick's Well, Verses on
Sudden Drying-up of, 222
Samtsbury, George, 2, 155
Salamander, The Description of
a, 55, 105
Santry, Lord, 115
Satire on Peruke, Gown and
Band, 292

Satire upon a very Surprising
Lord, 297

Satirical Megy on the Death of a
famous General, 166
Satyr, A, 201, 340
Satyr on some Collegiate Wits , A,
59

Satyr Satirised, 202
Savage^ Philip, 233
Sawney, 214

Scall'd Crow's Nest, The, 290
Scotch-Cloath, or Occasional Con -
formity, 119, 312
Scott, Sir Walter, x, 32, 37, 59,
60, 99, 164, 172

Scourge for the Author of the
Satyr, A, 201

Second Solomon, History of the ,
148, 257

Seditious Pamphlet, An Excellent
New Song on a, 154, 156
Serious Poem upon William Wood ,
A , 183

Sermon preached on St, Cecilia’s
Day, 260

Sharp, John, Archbishop of York,
144

Sheridan, Bev. Thomas, 147, 152,
162, 163, 179, 197, 204, 212, 230,
232, 233 ; Stella 'and, 228 ;
repartee in verse with Swift,
236 ; The Intelligencer, 236,

^ 242 ; Bouts Bimis, 241 ; imi %
tation of Swift’s style, 244 ;
Sermon by, 260 ; influence
ceases, 261 ; verses to, 197,
321

Sherlock, on his not taking the
Oaths, To Dr., 37
Shoemakers. See J ourneymen .
Sican, Mrs. John , 278
Sick Lion and the Ass, The, 352
Std Hamet's Bod. See Virtues.
Sidney, Viscount, afterwards Earl
of Bomney, 18

Simile on Our Want of Silver, 191
Simms, Philip, engraver, 271
Smedley, Jonathan, Dean of
Clogher and Killala, 179, 180,
200, 204, 243, 258
Snuff, On, 181
Society de Propaganda, 146
Soldier and a Scholar, A, 244
Some Seasonable Advice to Dr.

D — la — y, 259
Somerset, Duchess of, 144
South Sea Project, 160, 213
Southwell, Edward, 259 *

Speech of the P — st of T — y
C — ge to H.B.H. George, Prince
of Wales, 151
Speed, John, 14
Spence’s Anecdotes, 146
Sphinx, 37

Spuddy's Lamentation for the
Loss of her Collar, 239, 362
Stanhope, Earl of, 108, 110
Stealing a Crown , An Answer to.
On, 389

Steele, Bichard, 65, 139, 140, 247
Stella, 105, 106, 110, 1 12, 119,
124, 125, 127, 129, 132, 181,
231 ; verses to, 153, 154, 159,
169, 196, 197, 212, 225; last
celebration of Birthday, 227 ;
verses by, 231, 232
SteUa at Wood Pcvrk, 170
Stopford, Miss Dorothy, 63

INDEX

401

Storm, The , 167
Story of Orpheus Burlesqued , 99
Street Cries, 389
Strephon and Chloe, 276
Strickland, Miss, 37
Suffolk, Earl of, his fool, 258
Suffolk , Letters to and from
Henrietta , Countess of, 229
Supplement to the Profound , 229
> Synge, Edward, 225

2\, To the Hon. Mr. D., 349
Taine, Hippolyte, 2, 45, 60, 96,
111, 136, 173, 220, 229, 242
Tale of a Nettle, 121 ; Explana-
tion of, 123

Tale of a Tub , 54, 57, 59, 61, 64,
92, 98 ; Complete Key to, 106
Taplin's, A New Song Sung at the ,
Mr., 332 ; A Second
Song, 332

Taste and Writings of the Present
Time, Essay upon the, 229
Toiler, The , 96, 108, 111, 3 20
Temple, Sir William, 16, 19, 22,
32, 35, 39, 41, 43
Tenison, Henry, 11, 14, 15
Tenison, Thomas, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 114

Tighe, Richard, 181, 202, 236,
238

Tim and the Fables , 237, 264
Poland's Invitation to Dismal, 127,

' 128*

Tom and Dick, 238
Tonson, Jacob, bookseller, 58, 101,
118

Tooke, Ben, bookseller, 105, 106,
160, 265

Town Eclogue, 120
Trapp, Joseph, 158
Traitius, 251

Trinity College Vindicated , 201
Trip to Dunkirk, A, 93, 301
Tripe Chib, The, 58, 59
True and Faithful Account of the
Entry of Three Irish Am-
bassadors, 172

True and Faithful Inventory of the
Goods belonging to Dean Swift ,
197

Trumpeter, The, 114
Trusty and True Englishman, The ,
125

Twelve Articles, 240
Two Celebrated Modern Poets ,
On, 389

Ub-bub-a-boo, 298
Under Spur-Leathers, 179, 332
Union, On the , 92
Upstart, The, 389

Vanbrugh, Sir John, 54, 211
Vanbrugh's House, 54, *56, 67,
83-92, 105 .

Vanessa, 105, 134, 157, 169, 214,
228

Viceroy, The , 18
Vickers, Sarah, 118
Vindication of the Libel, 259
Vindication of Lord Carteret , 207,
251

Virgil, 61 ; translation of, 31
Virginia, Loyal Address of the
Clergy of, 299

Virtues of Sid Hamet the
Magician's Rod, The , 104, 105,
108, 109

Vulcan's Speech, 332

Walls, Thomas, Archdeacon of
Achonry, 107
Walmsley, Rev. John, 241
Walpole, Sir Robert, 144 ; A
Character of, 217 ; attacks on,
278

Warner, T„ bookseller, 139
Waterford, On the Arms of, 389
Waters, Edward, printer, 120,
291, 295 *

Weaver, Thomas, 9
Weaver!. See Epilogue . ^
Weston, Mrs., 52
Whaley, Hathaniel, 241
Whartonia, 204, 207
When the Cat's away the Mice
may Play , 124
Whiggism Laid Open, 145
Whigs' Lamentation, The, 116
Whimsical Medley, The, 7, 16, 18,
19, 56, 60, 99, 100, 113, 114,
122 172 173

Whitehall Evening Post, The, 253
Whitehall, On the Burning of , 40,
41

Whiteway, Martha, 37

402

INDEX

Whitshed, William, Chief Justice
m Ireland, 188

Wicked Treasonable Libel, A, 164
Wilde, Sir William, Closing Years
of Life of Smft , 12, 13, 172,
298

Wilford, J., bookseller, 257, 270
Will Wood's Petition to the
People of Ireland, 189
Winchelsea, Anne Finch, Countess
of, 95 w

Window' at Kilmore, On a , 389
Windows of Inns, Poems written
on, 220, 356

Windsor Prophecy, The, 118
Wisdom's Defeat, The Last Speech
of, 205

Wisdom's Defeat, A learned De-
bate on, 193

Wood, William, 178 ; New Son g
on Wood's Halfpence, 181, 182;
Serious Poem upon, 183 ; Will
Wood's Petition to the People of
Ireland, 189 ,* Wood an Insect ,
189 ; Wood an Ironmonger ,
189

Worth, Edward, 58
Written in a Lady's Ivory Table-
Book, 42, 105

Yahoo's Overthrow , The, 288, 297
York, Archbishop of. See Sharp*
John.

Young, Edward, 218, 269
Young Lady's Complaint for the
Stay of Dean Swift in England,
A, 228

Printed in Great Britain by
Eazell, Watson & Viney, 1 4 London and Aylesbury*